Am I Still Your Fantasy?
by loudmouthgeek
Summary: AU: Future Fic sequel to "What's Your Fantasy?" starting four years after high school and progressing onward.


**Disclaimer: I own neither Glee nor any part thereof. No money is being made off of this story and is intended only for entertainment purposes; therefore it falls within the parameters of "Fair Use"**

**A/N: I'll be honest with you guys "What's Your Fantasy?" is still my favorite of all of my stories. It was the one that always came most naturally to me to write. That's why it's one of the only stories to go beyond 6-7 chapters that I've actually finished, so I've wanted to write this for some time now. I figured the one year anniversary of its first publication was as good an excuse as I was going to find. I wound up having some technical issues and the story started running away from me in length. The original plan for this story would have had it be around 6-8k words long but I just kept having ideas so now it stands at 28k which makes it the longest one shot I've ever written. I've got more ideas that I might write up later, but they don't really necessarily belong in this story per se. **

**If you haven't read "What's Your Fantasy?" then you probably should, otherwise this may not make a whole lot of sense. I'd try to summarize it but it's 100k word story, I think I'd just make it worse trying to sum it up.**

**Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.**

**Am I Still Your Fantasy?**

They were at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. Why MTV bothered to still host this award show was beyond anyone's guess. They hadn't played even a single music video in the last three years and they didn't seem to have any plans to change that, but they did still host it and here they were. Tina hadn't had any real interest in being here but Brittany's new video for "Time's Up" was nominated for Choreography, Pop Video, and Female Video so she felt like she should go in case she won which meant Tina was going too.

Brittany had sort of stumbled backwards into being a pop singer. A couple of years ago she was working as a choreographer and background dancer for a rapper named Lil Stout when between set ups on a video, he heard her singing to herself and offered to sign her on the spot. A year later, her album dropped and she was the newest pop princess.

Brittany won for Best Choreography and on stage she thanked everyone involved in the video and the making of the song, she thanked all her fans for voting for her, and finally she thanked Tina. Their relationship wasn't exactly common knowledge. They didn't keep it a secret, nor did they flaunt it. Anyone that asked Brittany if she was seeing anyone would be told that she was in a very committed relationship with her high school sweetheart. If they asked who that was, she would have told them Tina's name, but no one _ever_ asked. Brittany and Tina had a suspicion that Brittany's management team was paying these interviewers to help keep something of a lid on them, but neither girl had ever denied the other in any way and they weren't about to start now.

After going backstage to get her picture taken a couple dozen times, she eventually made her way back to her seat next to Tina. Tina may have noticed one of the camera men lingering on them longer than he did anyone else around them, but she didn't say anything.

Eventually the Best Pop Video category came up. The award was presented by Justin Bieber who despite now being 22 years old still looked 12. It was kind of ridiculous. The tabloids accused him of taking drugs to deliberately stunt his growth which was stupid. TMZ had taken to calling him Peter Pan. Anyway, Brittany won that category as well, and again she thanked everyone that helped make the video and her fans and again she thanked Tina.

The night wore on and eventually it came to Best Female Video and the award was being presented by Usher. The nomination montage played and Brittany tensed up and squeezed Tina's left hand until it lost sensation. On stage Usher opened the envelope and smile bright as the sun. "Hell yes, ya'll," he said, "Brittany Pierce. Time's Up."

Brittany was on her feet in an instant and hauled Tina to her feet as well. Tina wrapped her up in a hug which Brittany returned enthusiastically. When Tina loosened her grip on Brittany to let her go accept the award, Brittany's hands went from around Tina's shoulders up to her face a moment before Brittany planted a scorching kiss on her.

It caught everyone off guard, most of all Tina. She was never one for that level of PDA so they didn't usually kiss in public. This kiss, however, was so surprising and so passionate that it literally took Tina's breath away. She got so light headed that Brittany and Gina, Brittany's manager, had to help her back into her seat.

Once she was settled, Brittany made her way back up to the stage as quickly as her ankle-length Kurt Hummel dress would let her. There she was met with a warm hug by Usher and Tina read his lips as he said, "I'm so proud of you." He'd been one of the first people to hire Brittany as a choreographer, he'd helped her make a lot of connections in the entertainment industry, he'd helped her in the making of her album, and he had come to be something of a big brother figure in her life.

When finally she made it to the microphone, dragging Usher with her, she held The Moon Man aloft and said, "Thank you everyone for this." She turned and handed the statuette off and then turned back to the mic, "So when you promote albums and stuff, they always ask about your personal life and my PR team just wants me to be vague and like not tell people that I'm seeing anyone, but I totally hate that and I won't do that. I've always said when asked that I'm involved with someone but I've never made clear who. My days of holding back how I feel are over. I love you _so _much, Tina Cohen-Chang," Brittany held up her left hand, "I've worn your ring every day for four years, just like you have mine, and I don't know about yours, but mine is getting awful lonely. I think it needs another one to keep it company. I know you've already answered this question once before but Tina will you marry me?"

Tina was up out of her seat and walking determinedly up the aisle to the stage. Her dress was floor-length so when she had to slow down to climb the steps up the stage, she quickly got frustrated. Luckily there was Usher who came down quickly to… well, usher her up the steps. At the top waiting with a huge smile was Brittany. Tina threw her arms around her fiancé's neck and pressed another kiss to Brittany's lips. "Yes," she said pulling back only long enough to do so before pressing her lips against Brittany's again and then repeating the process several more times.

Usher quickly made his way to the microphone and said, "In case it wasn't clear, she said yes." A round of whoops and hollers came from the audience. Neither Tina nor Brittany heard a bit of it, they were far too lost in their own little world.

**X**

When Tina first heard the idea, she flat out refused. The second time she heard it she just walked out of the room without a word, but they wouldn't be denied. Based on the buzz surrounding the proposal, MTV wanted to do a reality show based around the build up to their wedding and they were not taking no for an answer. However, Tina did manage to say no long enough for Gina to hammer out a hell of a deal, not with MTV but with their parent company Viacom that involved them using Brittany's music in a lot of Paramount movies and a development deal to be named later, which probably meant Brittany making a movie herself. And like that _My Big Fat Celebrity Wedding_ was the next big ratings smash for MTV.

And it was the newest headache in Tina Cohen-Chang's life. Brittany wasn't wild about the idea of being followed everywhere she went, but she could compartmentalize. Tina couldn't and hated it. She'd never had much tolerance for the extreme lack of privacy that came along with the limelight and had always been happy to stand just out of the spotlight on Brittany, but she'd agreed to the deal, so now she was living with it. For however long it took them to plan the wedding (six months was the goal) the cameras followed them everywhere except the restroom and their bedroom, they would do interviews with Brittany, Tina, and their friends so that MTV could turn the whole thing into a dramatic weekly series the grand finale of which was the wedding itself. After all of that, MTV and Viacom were paying for the couple's honeymoon and were never to come near Tina again for any reason without her express consent.

Initially, Tina just did her best to be as uninteresting as she possibly could be in front of the cameras. She knew that Brittany's natural effervescence would draw a lot of attention off of her and when you threw in the big personalities and inherent drama of their best friends/Maids of Honor, Rachel and Santana, that it should be easy for Tina to just fade into the background.

And it was for a while. Early on they'd go and look at things, dresses, cakes, stationary, whatever, and she would let Brittany gush and gush about all the things she liked, and then that night when they were alone in bed and had their body mics off, she'd talk about what she liked and didn't like. Brittany knew that Tina like to be more contemplative about things so it never even struck her has odd that she would be quiet for most of the day and only discuss her feelings at night near the end. The roaming camera crews weren't supposed to interact with them, only watch and record so they never tried to prompt her to do more. Once a week she'd get a call from some executive who had just seen the rough cut of the episode and wanted her to be "more active" in the planning of the wedding, advice that Tina would promptly ignore.

It worked… for about three weeks. When they were just window shopping for things, visiting dress shops and flipping through magazines and having sample cakes, it wasn't an issue for Tina to remain functionally mute, but when it finally came time to start making actual decisions it got harder to wait until bedtime to voice her opinions.

Then came the network's suggestions and once they started coming in Tina swore that they were making them just to provoke a reaction out of her. The network didn't like Tina's dress, then the network didn't like Brittany's dress, then the network wanted to fill their wedding party with celebrities… but _not_ the celebrities they actually knew, then there was a big discussion about who would be walking the girls down the aisle despite both girls' fathers being alive and perfectly healthy and happy to do it, but there was some spiel about not wanting to appear sexist or heteronormative in excluding any of Brittany's mothers (basically they wanted Sue Sylvester to walk Brittany down because Sue was now a 10 time National Champion cheerleading coach).

The network questioning their every decision started getting to Brittany. To her it felt like they couldn't do anything right and that made her feel stupid. Once Brittany shared this feeling, Tina went into her scary protector mode once again. (She hadn't been called Santina in a long time but she remembered the nickname.) She stormed into the business offices of MTV and demanded to speak to the person handing down these edicts and refused to leave until she got that meeting, figuring that the network wouldn't want to have one of the stars of its own show arrested… on camera, no less.

She got the meeting which the cameras were not allowed to film and she lit into them telling them to back off. They were being paid to let MTV film them planning their wedding. If MTV wanted to get into the wedding planning business, they'd have to look elsewhere. "If you don't back off," she said in closing, "and stop making my fiancé feel stupid, then the rest of this wedding will be planned through e-mail and text message while Brittany and I sit on the couch in our living room and how exciting will that be for your audience to watch?"

Eventually it came to light that the crux of their issue had to do with a provision in the contract that said they had to do a one hour special on their dress designer. The suits had been more than fine with it at the time of negotiations because they'd assumed that they were looking at interviewing Vera Wang, Donna Karan, or someone huge like that, but Brittany and Tina's dress designer was and was always going to be Kurt Hummel. Their dress shopping outings had mostly been getting a sense of what style of dress they liked. Kurt had been doing well for himself but he hadn't really blown up yet. This wedding being aired was hopefully going to put him out there and make him a household name. Tina basically told them to suck it up and deal with it in not so polite words.

After that things moved along considerably more smoothly. The network backed off the decisions they made. They did still try to offer suggestions but those were mostly ignored except for the rare odd suggestion that turned out to actually be good. MTV did try to get them to talk to some of their old high school friends to do interviews with them after they had initially refused.

It turned out that Finn Hudson had declined because he didn't want to drag his family into the public eye, which Tina understood. Finn had dated Erin O'Malley for most of his senior year (her junior year) and then all of her senior year while he was going to OSU Lima. They got engaged the day she graduated high school and they got married in the fall. They now had a two year old daughter named Eva.

Speaking of daughters, the other two ex-classmates that were declining interviews were Noah Puckerman and Quinn Abrams. The court records concerning Beth's adoption were sealed, of course, but they all knew that it wouldn't take much digging to put things together. Shelby Corcoran had started up New Directions' Booster Club and had come in often to help prep them for competitions bringing her child with her, so Baby Beth had been a part of their lives from the second she was born. It would be very easy to put together when Quinn had been pregnant and when Shelby had adopted Beth. The little girl had obviously grown up knowing she was adopted, but no one wanted the details her birth broadcast for the world to see.

Tina and Gina got Finn to agree to the interview so long as MTV came to him and interviewed him at the tire shop, away from his family and kept all questions about Brittany, Tina, and the Glee Club. Then Tina managed to convince the executives at MTV that they were never very close to Quinn and Puck, which was true enough with Puck but total bullshit about Quinn. Brittany and Quinn were the best of friends since middle school and Quinn and Tina had bonded initially because Tina had brokered the peace between Quinn and Rachel to allow for the adoption of Beth and it had grown from there after they discovered they shared a lot of common interests… but MTV didn't need to know that. As far as they were concerned Quinn was just the adopted sister of Tina's friend Artie and she made sure the rest of the Gleeks knew that as well.

By month four of the whole process, they had gotten into a groove with this wedding planning stuff and things were progressing along very nicely. They were on schedule for their date of August 12th just over a month away, then one day Tina woke up with a sense of foreboding. Something told her that today was going to bring drama and sure enough, Brittany and Tina were barely done with their morning coffee when Rachel let herself into their apartment with her key. She was lugging three rather sizable bags with her. "No," Tina said as soon as she saw. "No, no, no, no!"

"Santana and I broke up," she said, "For good this time." Tina rolled her eyes because Santana and Rachel had broken up "for good" every 5-7 months for the last six years and every time it played out the same way: They'd get into a fight over something, or in some cases, nothing, and because of their personalities it would escalate and escalate until one of them broke up with the other. The dumper would end up on Brittany and Tina's couch for anywhere from three days to a month and a half, then the other would come to talk and they'd get back together again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

"No," Tina repeated, "No, you didn't."

"Look, Tina," Rachel said, "I know I've said similar things in the past, but I mean it this time."

"And you meant it those times, too," Tina said, "but I have enough on my plate right now with the wedding and the cameras. I can't deal with your drama too. So just leave your bags here and go talk a walk around Central Park or go take in a show or whatever will calm you down and then go and talk to Santana and work out your crap."

"Tina I can't believe how incredibly insensitive you're being. You're my best friend, I'm telling you that my relationship is over, and you're, what, telling me to walk it off?"

Tina crossed the room swiftly her face blank but obviously being forced that way so that the cameras didn't see what was beneath the surface. She seized one of Rachel's hands and started towards the back hallway, "Come with me," she said through gritted teeth. It wasn't a question and she didn't leave Rachel the option of disagreeing. Once in the sanctity of her bedroom, Tina slammed the door closed behind her and said, "You have exactly five minutes for me help you to deal with your problems and then you're going back to your place and working things out."

"You heard that Santana's staying on permanently at Congresswoman Velazquez's office once her internship is up, correct?" Rachel asked.

"Yes," said Tina sternly, "and we're _happy_ for her about that. It's what she wanted."

"Of course we're happy for her," Rachel snapped back, "I'm not _that_ selfish… not anymore at least. I just…" Rachel sighed and threw her hands up.

"Four minutes, eighteen seconds," Tina said.

"She wants us to move to Brooklyn," Rachel said.

"So what's wrong with Brooklyn? Rent's a lot cheaper than Manhattan. You're out of school, I doubt your parents are going to want to keep paying your way forever and whatever low paying copywriter gig she's getting in Nydia's office isn't going to support both of you."

"That's the thing," Rachel said, "It's not a copywriter job. It's no secret that Santana hasn't really been an intern for over a year now, since she got herself assigned to Congresswoman Velazquez personally. She's been being groomed."

"Groomed for what?" Tina said.

"She's going to be named Chief of Staff," Rachel said.

Tina's eyes bulged and her jaw fell open, "Chief of…? She hasn't even _started_ her Master's yet."

"Which is exactly what I said as well as exactly what she apparently said, but evidently Santana has really, _really_ made an impression on the Congresswoman and now Nydia wants her."

Tina took a moment to sort out her thoughts before speaking again, "So Santana is getting what any Poli Sci grad would consider a dream job _immediately_ after graduation… and you and her have gotten into a argument over the fact that she wants to move to Brooklyn, to presumably be closer to the people she is helping to serve? That can't be all there is to it."

"It's just… she's 22 and she's going to be Chief of Staff to a United States Congresswoman," Rachel said, "Her job title might as well be Heir to the Throne, you know?"

"I'm still not seeing the bad, Rachel," Tina said with growing irritation, "You've known for at least three years that this is what Santana wanted to do with her life and now she has this amazing opportunity for a job that will more than likely get her there, and yet instead of celebrating with her, you're here preparing to ride our couch."

"But that's just it," Rachel said, "She's achieving her dreams and I'm not. What if she… what if she gets to Washington and decides she doesn't want me anymore? What if I never amount to more than a desperate Broadway wannabe and she's off, y'know, changing this world for the better?"

Tina actually, literally growled in frustration at her before saying, "Rachel, you insanely selfish bitch, I fucking want to choke you right now." Now it was Rachel's turn to be slack jawed. "Santana has been working her ass to the bone to get where she is today. Now that hard work has paid off in a borderline miraculous way and you _somehow _manage to make it about you. You want the truth? Well here it is. I can't guarantee you that you and Santana are going to be together forever because you've both managed to go six years without ever learning how to be in an adult relationship. Neither one of you seems able to talk about your feelings or your issues without shouting about them and throwing the other one out of the house. If you keep doing what you're doing, eventually one or the other of you are going to do something during these breaks that the other can't or won't forgive, and I'll be honest with you Rachel, if I were in Santana's shoes and you pulled what you're pulling right now, we'd be done. No lie. So here's what you're going to do: step one, go get your shit and go home, step two, get your head out of your ass and stop thinking only about yourself, and step three, you do every fucking thing in your power to make it up to Santana for being such a colossal asshole about what's probably the biggest moment in her professional life. Understand?"

"Yes," Rachel said sheepishly.

"Good, now while I'm talking, let me say this," Tina said, "For now, until the wedding, I cannot deal with your problems, okay? I know that that's kind of a shitty thing to say to a friend, but I just can't, okay? I've just got too much stress already with the wedding and the camera crews and dealing with suddenly being famous. For the next five and a half weeks I need my Maid of Honor to be my rock, to be the person I can count on when I get overwhelmed. Can you be that person for me or do I need to call Artie or Mercedes?"

"I can do it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Rachel said with certainty in her voice, "I'm sorry I brought all of this on you. You're right, I'm being extremely selfish. It's just that… No, you know what? No excuses. I was wrong, I'm sorry."

"Good," Tina said, "Then I don't feel stupid for going to bat for you with MTV."

"You what? Went to bat?"

"The network wants there to be a song in the ceremony, because apparently _now_ MTV suddenly cares about music," Tina rolled her eyes, "But anyway they kept throwing rappers and pop stars at us and I just kept shooting them down saying that there were enough talented singers already coming that if they wanted someone to sing to us that it would be one of our friends. They insisted that it be the most talented one of you. They probably assume that Brittany is the best singer I know. I chose not to correct that assumption, so now the stage is all set for you to blow their minds."

Rachel's eyes were wide and her lips were pressed tightly together for a long moment before a smile spread across her face. "Oh My God! Seriously? Tina, you're amazing! I don't deserve you as a best friend." Rachel quickly grabbed her into a hug.

"At this very moment," Tina said, "You really don't, but in general, you do, so I'm gonna let you slide on account of everyone's human and makes mistakes."

Rachel pulled back and asked, "Which song am I singing?"

Tina smiled slightly. "We have a short list," she said, "We thought it merited a discussion with you… some other time."

"Yes," Rachel agreed, "Some other time. Right now I have to go home and brainstorm about ways to make amends to Santana. Perhaps I'll look over real estate listings in Brooklyn and pick out a few that have potential, then later I can bring her lunch at work."

"Sounds like the start of a good plan," Tina said.

"Do you think she'll forgive me?" Rachel asked fear evident in her voice.

"She loves you," Tina said.

"That's not really an answer to my question," Rachel said.

Tina shrugged, "It's the only thing I've got, honey. I have no personal experience testing the limits of forgiveness. Brittany and I don't fight, not like you guys anyway. All you can do is try I suppose."

**X**

On the way out Brittany and Tina's front door, Rachel quickly texted Santana a simple "I love you" then on the subway back to their place she composed an e-mail. It was long a wordy and full of many apologies and she didn't actually finish it until after she'd made it back to their apartment. She got no response from her but Rachel was undeterred.

Shortly before one o'clock, when Santana usually went to lunch, Rachel waded into the New York offices of Congresswoman Lydia Velazquez loaded down with bags upon bags and an armload of paperwork. She strode through the office with confidence like she had dozens of times before. She was met by Joseph, the office manager, a very tall black man with a sweet smile who reminded Rachel very much of her Uncle Brian. "Hello, Joseph," Rachel said, "I was hoping to find Santana to bring her some lunch."

"Santana asked Karen and Carrie to take a message if you called the office. She didn't say what to do if you showed up here," he said, "I take it you two are quarreling again?"

"I'm afraid so," Rachel replied, "but I've come to make amends." She held up the several bags that she carried. "If after trying to talk and giving her food to her, she still wishes not to speak with me then I promise I'll leave peacefully, long before any sort of disruptive shouting might begin."

"She's in the conference room going over some things for tomorrow," he said.

"And I won't be interrupting anything important?" Rachel asked, "She and Nydia aren't…"

"The Congresswoman is in Washington this afternoon for a vote."

"Thank you, Joseph," Rachel said with a smile as she turned towards the conference room.

She knocked lightly when she arrived and Santana answered, "Yeah?" Rachel took this as cue to let herself in. When Santana looked up to see Rachel, her face tensed up. "Oh… hey," she said, "What are you doing here?"

"I came to bring you lunch and to apologize for yesterday," Rachel said settling the bags down on the table.

"Yeah, I got your text and your e-mail," Santana said coolly.

"I thought it bore repeating," Rachel said, "I'm sorry…"

"Heard you the first time," Santana said, "Or well, read it the first time, whatever."

"Okay," Rachel said, "You're clearly still angry, as is completely your right. I was selfish and horribly unsupportive of what's probably the biggest and best thing that's ever happened to you and I wish I could go back and undo that but I can't. You're hurt, I understand that. I won't bagger you any longer. I'll just leave you with these." Rachel sat down the stack of papers she'd been carrying on the table between Santana and all the sacks of food."

"What's that?" Santana said of the papers.

"They're real estate listings," Rachel said, "Mostly in the Red Hook and Greenpoint neighborhoods. There are a couple of listings in there for Williamsburg but I mostly took those just to admire the beauty and possibly as goal to aim for since they are currently way out of our price range."

"Our?" Santana repeated, "Didn't you break up with me yesterday?"

"Yes, and I'm sorry for that as well," Rachel said, "I don't want that and I don't want us to keep doing that, fighting and breaking up and spending weeks apart. When you're… when you're ready to talk to me again, I'd like us to consider going to couples' counseling… at least until we can learn to communicate without fighting. I know that's probably the last thing you would ever want to do, see a therapist, but…"

"You seem pretty confident that there's actually going to _be_ a time when I'm ready to talk to you again," Santana said.

"That's because the alternative is that I'm too late and I've already lost you… and-and that thought is just too unbearable to even consider right now. I love you, Santana, so much, and I don't know why we fight like we do except that we just always have, even before we were a couple. I want to break the cycle. I want us to be well and truly happy together. I-I'll get out of your hair and let you have lunch, but I'm going to be home when you get off tonight. My name is on the least too, so I have every right to be there, and I feel that us not retreating to Brittany and Tina's is an important step in breaking the cycle." Santana just looked at her with her implacable poker face. "I'll see you tonight, Santana," she said turning for the door.

"Wait," Santana said rolling her eyes at herself. Rachel turned back to look at her. "C'mere, sit," Santana thumbed towards the chair on her right. Rachel's face did that thing where Santana knew she was trying really hard not to smile. It didn't entirely work this time. She quickly made her way around the table to the indicated chair and sat. "This doesn't mean I'm not still mad at you," she clarified, "just help me eat some of this. What is all of this, anyway?"

"This," Rachel said pulling bags towards them and beginning to unload their contents, "is a sampling of some of the many, many wonderful dining options, both vegan and non-vegan, available at eateries owned and operated by the citizens of New York's 12th Congressional district. I thought it would be a good idea for us to familiarize ourselves with the community in which we are soon to be dwelling."

Both girls found dishes to their liking and started eating. After a few minutes, Santana started flipping through the real estate listings as Rachel watched on in silence. "These are all two and three bedroom," Santana observed.

"Yes, I thought a bigger place might do us some good," Rachel said, "Right now we are all over each other. You can barely get any separation. I don't have any illusion that even with counseling we're ever going to stop fighting _entirely_, so I though a two bedroom would allow you to have a home office where you could have some alone time if you needed."

"And the three bedrooms?"

"Well, mostly it was just to demonstrate the price difference between Manhattan and Brooklyn, but I also thought it might do us some good to look at this as the place where we are going to truly begin to build our future together."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, I know that you want children someday," Rachel said.

"Yeah, _some_day," Santana said, "but that day is still way…"

Rachel nodded quickly, "I understand that and I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I certainly don't think that we're in a place right now to want to add to our stresses by having a baby, but I also understand that people's desires to have children can come upon them quickly and a year from now, or two, one or both of us could change our minds and be ready. Like I said, I'm just looking to the future."

Santana stared at her for a long minute. "Okay, look," she said at last, "The 12th District includes some of the Lower East Side and The Bowery. If you want we can…"

"No," Rachel said cutting her off, "I appreciate the gesture but no. This is what you want from your life, Santana, you shouldn't… While I'm certain that Nydia's endorsement will go a long way towards getting you elected, the fact that you were born and raised in Ohio could hurt you and if you live in the outskirts of your district then it _could_ be made to look like you're an outsider, like you don't _really_ care about the issues plaguing your people. Especially with you getting fast tracked to Chief of Staff so quickly, it could look like you're just some power player trying to use this place to get elected."

"You came up with all of that this morning?"

"No, It's something that I've been thinking about since it became clear to me that this was where you were going to begin your journey in politics, and I began playing out the scenario in my head," Rachel said, "Admittedly, I was originally looking at it all with a different attitude, the put upon 'Oh, we're going to _have _to move to Brooklyn' thing but that was me being selfish and stupid and I'm sorry."

"And how did this scenario play out?" Santana asked with something approaching a smile on her lips.

"You work very hard at your job, naturally. We make ourselves a part of the community, perhaps by frequently having breakfast out at a neighborhood restaurant, a la F & M Bagels or similar. I make a point to take an hour or so off of my inevitable stardom to bring you lunch from these and other fine dining locations. Then in ten years or whenever Nydia's ready to retire, you announce your candidacy, she endorses you, and before you know it I'm the proud girlfriend or possibly by then the wife of the new Congresswoman from New York's Twelfth."

Definitely smiling now, Santana said, "I like your scenario, all except for one thing. Ten years? How about four?"

"Four years? She's retiring in four years?" Santana nodded, "So you're running in 2020?"

"Can you handle that?" Santana asked, "Will you be ready by then?"

"Will you?" Rachel asked.

Santana didn't answer. Instead she reached over and took Rachel's left hand in her right. They'd years ago figured out that Santana's left handedness worked out perfectly since it allowed them to hold hands and continue working on whatever they were doing, in this case eating lunch. When Santana had eaten her fill she sat back in her chair and looked at Rachel. "You know I'm still upset with you about last night, right?" Rachel nodded. "You know I'm going to punish you for it in bed tonight, right?"

"I hadn't assumed it would necessarily be tonight," Rachel said, "but you do have something of a history of working your frustrations out on me sexually, not that you'll find me complaining about mind-blowing orgasms."

**X**

Most of the interviews were done one-on-one with an MTV personality talking to their friends, classmates, and teachers. They interviewed the families of the girls together which was interesting for Brittany's family, one guy interviewing Brittany's father, mother, two step-mothers and her little sister. Then sort of last minute they got the idea to interview each member of the wedding party with their respective bride. Being put together late in the game there wasn't a whole lot of time to do research into their relationships so the questions were mostly just prompts to get them talking to watch them interact.

"So, Artie," said Devin, the interviewer, "I was surprised to find out that you and Tina actually dated back in high school. Is it weird to be Best Man at your ex-girlfriend's wedding?"

Artie smiled at Tina and held out his hand, "Five bucks," he said. Tina just slapped his hand instead. "Nobody's ever gonna let that go are they?"

Tina smiled and said, "Decades from now when my first grandchild is born someone is going find you and ask you what's it like now that your ex-girlfriend is a grandmother?"

Artie looked into the camera and said, "We dated for like a month, six years ago. The sum total of our relationship was her coming to my house and watching Battlestar Galactica and sometimes we'd make out a little. It was never very serious. We've been friends since we were three, which means almost twenty years now, so no, it's not weird that I'm Best Man at her wedding."

"Fair enough," said Devin, "Now correct me if my research is wrong here, Artie, but you're coming into the wedding a single man, yes?"

"I am," he said.

"Weddings are a good place to meet women," Devin said, "Do you have any hopes of finding your own love story here? Or maybe just hooking up with a bridesmaid?"

"HA!" Artie laughed loudly, "My prospects at picking up a bridesmaid. Well, let's see, there's Santana, an out-and-proud lesbian who honestly kinda still scares me a little."

"I'm sure she'll be glad to know that," Tina interjected.

Artie laughed again, "There's Santana's girlfriend of several years, Rachel. There's Brittany's fifteen year old sister, Charity and Ms Mercedes Jones, my twin sister."

Devin chuckled a little at this," Your _twin_ sister?"

"What's funny about that? You don't see the resemblance?" Artie asked. "Is it because I'm white? You think it's funny that I'm her brother because I'm white? I'll have you know that this condition is congenital and a brotha can't that he was born melanin deficient!" Artie snapped his fingers over his head.

In her seat next to Artie, Tina was howling in laughter.

Artie was doing his damnedest not to laugh as well as he said, "Shit ain't _funny_. Shit ain't _even_ funny. Damn!"

A couple moments later, Tina managed to compose herself enough to say, "Artie was born a sassy black woman in a white man's body."

"Preach," Artie said.

"So we ruled out all the girls for you to hook up with," Tina said, "What about Kurt?"

Artie grinned and said, "Hey y'know, talk to me after a couple beers."

"What about outside the wedding party?" Tina asked.

"I dunno how's your mom doing? Things with her and your dad still…"

"Ohmygod," Tina said blushing giving Artie a shove, "Shut up."

"I'm just saying, they ain't married and for a woman in her fifties, your mom is hot," Artie said with a huge grin.

Tina slapped him in the shoulder twice. "First of all, my mother is 47, jackass. Secondly, _you_ are not one to be bringing up hot mothers," she said turning to the camera, "because let me tell you, MTV, about a beautiful woman named Amy Abrams…"

Artie quickly clapped his hand over Tina's mouth. "Okayokayokay, you win. Just stop."

When Artie withdrew his hand, Tina was chuckling softly, "He has this weird thing about-"

"Stop it," Artie interjected.

"-anyone calling his mom hot," she finished.

"Look I'm sorry I implied that I wanted to hook up with your mom," Artie said, "Can we talk about something else now?"

"It's supposed to be a star-studded event," Devin said at this prompting, "Are there any celebrities you're looking forward to meeting."

Artie looked to Tina to answer first. She gave a non-committal shrug. "The shroud of celebrity is kind of lost on me these days," Tina said, "Back at the VMAs when this whole thing began, I met Jay Z and Kanye and Beyonce, Kid Cudi, The Black Keys and it was cool to meet them but it wasn't like it would have been if I'd met them four or five years ago where I would have flipped out."

"The mystique has worn off," Artie said.

"Yeah," Tina said, "I guess there's only so many time you can come home from school to find Usher sitting on your couch talking and having tea before the shock of it wears off. I'm sure there will be people there that will be very cool to meet, but to be honest I really haven't paid that much attention to the celebrity guest list. Brittany and I've been so busy with the friends and family members list that we left all the rest of it to MTV."

"I, on the other hand, have been keeping a keen eye on the celebrity attendance lists," Artie said pulling out a piece of paper.

"Oh yeah?" Tina asked, "Any names grab your attention?"

"Well there's no Jay Z, Kanye, or Beyonce," he said gruffly.

"He's jealous," Tina explained to the camera.

"Damn right I'm jealous," he said, "but there was one name in there... Miranda Cosgrove."

Tina looked at him quizzically, "Do you have a thing for Miss Cosgrove?"

"Dude, ever since School of Rock," Artie said smiling.

"She was in that?" Tina said, "Oh she was that little bossy, miniature version of Sophomore Year Rachel." Now it was Artie's turn t howl with laughter. Tina turned once more towards the camera and said, "Sorry Rachel, I know you're not like that anymore." She gave Artie a minute to compose himself. "So are planning on trying get you some of iCarly?"

Artie scoffed at the question, "Don't say it like that," he admonished.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm some predatory animal and she's a piece of meat," Artie said. "The question was who are you looking forward to meeting, not which celebrity are you looking to bang. If she makes it and I see her and she's not obviously _with_ someone, then I'll roll up and say 'Hi, I'm Artie and I'm a big fan of your work' and if she _happens_ to be attracted to devastatingly handsome men who are also smart and funny and musically gifted with burgeoning careers as independent film makers, then mores the better."

"You forgot modest," Tina said laughing.

"What that means? If it means good, I'm that," Artie said.

Tina laughed again, eventually she laid her head on his shoulder, "Artie you need to live in New York, so I can come see you more often."

"Well, next time you see the gravy train come rolling in," Artie said, "tell them to make a stop out at Artie's house."

"I'll see what I can do, assuming you don't get in the habit of referring to yourself in the third person."

"Artie makes no promises."

**X**

Brittany was sat on a couch in her dressing room at the wedding hall staring up at the ceiling, waiting. Her hair was already done but not her makeup. That had to be done by the TV people so that her face wouldn't be all shiny when they aired the wedding special later in the week. So she was sat waiting. She had looked at herself in the mirror when she got here half an hour earlier and thought she looked ridiculous since she already had her wedding hair all pinned up at the back of her head but the rest of her was just like she was most mornings, in an old Cheerios t-shirt and yoga pants wearing sandals and no makeup, not that she wore much normally.

She was enjoying the brief reprieve from having the cameras all over her. She didn't mind the crews as much as Tina did but she was still growing tired of having them around all the time. The guys on the camera crews were mostly nice guys. She didn't hate them or anything, in fact she very often made them all coffee when she was at home in the mornings. Mostly she just missed her privacy or at least the option of privacy.

They had filmed the final dress fittings three days ago and then they'd packed up and left their apartment and except for the rehearsal dinner last night, the girls hadn't seen them. Of course soon they would be everywhere. Pretty much as soon as Brittany put on her dress, they would flood in and begin documenting every single second from now until Brittany and Tina left for the airport to go on their honeymoon. That was why she still wore the t-shirt and pants. She wasn't ready to be under scrutiny again… not just yet.

A knock came at the door followed by a familiar voice. "It's me," Santana said.

"Come in," Brittany said. The door opened and closed quickly and in strode Santana in her bridesmaid's dress, hair and makeup done. "You look pretty," Brittany said off handedly.

"Thanks," Santana said, "What are you doing in here?"

"Not much," Brittany said, "Just stalling mostly."

"Stalling?" Santana asked, "You're… you're not having second thoughts about this are you?"

"About what?"

"Um, you know Tina, the wedding," Santana said settling in next to Brittany on the couch.

"No!" Brittany said, "Not about Tina… or the wedding… or well, not about getting married, anyway. I'm kinda like less than thrilled with how this wedding is stacking up. Y'know, the camera crews, a hall full of people I mostly don't know that are here just to get their faces on TV."

"Britt, honey, it's a little bit late in the game to…"

"I know," she said, "And I totally wasn't like talking about calling it off or running away or anything. Just stalling until I have to let them in."

"Okay, well, MTV is up Gina's ass right now about why they haven't been let in here yet," Santana said, "I mean, you know me. I think Gina's a bitch and she can suck it but you like her so…"

"I just don't get it," Brittany sighed in exasperation.

"Don't get what?"

"All of this," she said, "Why is any of this happening? I mean like… my wedding is going to be on _TV_, San. Two hours in _primetime_ on MTV and I _just_ don't get it. Why does anyone care about me Santana?"

Santana's face fell, "Oh, Brittany…"

Brittany shook her head. "I didn't mean it like that," she said, "I totally know why you care about me, and like why Tina and our friends and family and all that care about me. I don't get why people that don't know me care about me. I don't get why I'm famous. I'm just a talented dancer with a decent voice. I'm not anything special."

"You could not be more wrong, sweetie," Santana said, "Where's your purse? I want to show you something."

"It's over there," Brittany said pointing at the vanity nearby. Santana stood up, crossed to the table, and dug into Brittany's bag until she found the phone she was looking for. Brittany seeing what Santana had retrieved said, "Unlock code is 0-2-2-3."

"Vampire Day," Santana said as she unlocked the phone and began tapping on things. A moment later she said, "Here you go."

She handed the phone to Brittany who squinted and read. "I Am Unicorn-dot-com?"

"Some of your fans found your old YouTube channel," Santana said sitting back down, "and it still has all your old Fondue for Two videos on it." Brittany didn't seem to see the connection. "Do you remember a couple days after we did 'Born This Way' you and I were doing an episode and you called me a unicorn because I magically made Rachel stop wanting that stupid nose job. You said that a unicorn is…"

"A unicorn is someone who knows they're magical and isn't afraid to show it," Brittany said, "I remember."

"Well a lot of people identify with that," Santana said pointing at the phone. "Kids and teenagers and sometimes even adults who feel like they're weird or don't quite fit the norm, they… they call themselves unicorns now, because of you, because you make it all right to be different or weird."

She looked back to the phone and began scrolling through it. She read about kids who are different and were made to feel like freaks and weirdoes but found strength in themselves through her. There were written stories, drawings, pictures, videos, all tagged with the phrase "I'm a unicorn." "This is amazing," Brittany said.

"Yeah, that unicorn video has like 15 million hits now," Santana said, "You're an inspiration to a lot of people, honey."

"I need to make a new video," Brittany said suddenly.

"Okay," Santana said, "We'll… before you leave, we'll find a few minutes to…"

"No," Brittany said, "Right now."

"Right now we need to get you into your dress," Santana said.

"I'll get in my dress _after _I make the video," Brittany said, "If you help me it will go faster."

"Fine," Santana said, "Give me the phone." Brittany handed it over and turned to face Santana who was quickly bringing up the video camera app. Santana took a second to frame Brittany well then hit record and point at Brittany to go.

"Hey, all my amazing, wonderful unicorns out there, I just found your website, I Am Unicorn-dot-com, and I just wanted to take a minute to tell you all that I am so flattered and touched that I am inspiring so many people out there to discover their own magic. It's the most amazing feeling, like I totally can't even describe. I so wish I had more time to sit down and read all of your stories but I am just a matter of minutes away from putting on my wedding dress and then maybe an hour away from getting married. After that I'm going on safari for my honeymoon and I'm not even sure when I'll have internet access again, but when I do I _am_ going to read them. And I'm going to watch the videos and read your stories and check out your drawings… all of it.

"Now as a reward for being the most amazing fans in the world, I thought I'd give you a preview of the big wedding special. It's just a small preview and it's totally illicit. MTV doesn't know I'm posting this, but take a look," Brittany said turning her head to the side, "This is my wedding hair and I totally love it." Santana stood from the couch and moved slowly around getting close in on Brittany's do.

"I have to go for now but I want to leave you with one thing. Always remember that the things that make you different are also the things that make you special. Don't let anyone ever tell you differently. Believe in the power of your own magic and great things will happen to you, I firmly believe that. Bye for now." Brittany waved until Santana lowered the phone.

Brittany played the video back to make sure it was to her liking before uploading it to YouTube and playing it once more to make certain that it played correctly and was clear. Once she was satisfied, she put the phone away, got undressed, and with Santana's assistance got her dress on. After the zipper was up and the buttons done, Brittany turned to face Santana once more and said, "How do I look?"

"Radiant," Santana said, "Beautiful like you always look but just even more so today."

"That's because I'm getting married today," Brittany gushed with a huge grin.

"Is that what's going on?" Santana asked, "I knew something big was happening today. Here I was thinking it's my birthday."

Brittany smiled and said, "I guess it's time let the madness in."

She turned towards the door but Santana caught one of her hands. Brittany turned back to face her confused, "They've waited this long. They can wait just another minute. There's something I want to say to you, best friend to best friend, without any sort of recording device."

"Is everything okay?"

"Everything's great, honey," Santana said with a smile. "I just... There were some things I wanted to tell you. They were in the first draft of my speech for the reception but I thought some people might find them inappropriate but I'm sure you'll understand my meaning. I-I just wanted to tell you that I think you're amazing at everything you do. You're a great friend and a better girlfriend from what I can tell. My not taking a chance on you when I had the opportunity was the dumbest thing I ever did. I won't say I regret it because I know you're as happy as can be with Tina and I'm happy with Rachel..."

"Really?" Brittany said, "Are you guys _really_ finally happy together?"

"I don't know," Santana said, "We're on our way to happy anyway. We managed to have a disagreement the other day that didn't dissolve into shouting and no one threw the other out."

Brittany smiled at Santana brightly, "Well, that's totally progress. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your speech."

"Right," Santana said, "I won't say I regret how things worked out, but I think a little piece of me will always wonder, what if? I don't think I had anything else except maybe to say that I'm really happy for you and Tina, just a little sad that I didn't let us have a chance. I hope you understand what I mean."

"I do," Brittany said pulling her into a hug, "I love you."

"I love you, too, honey," Santana said. They held the hug for several long minutes and just lived in the complexity that was the entirety of their lifelong relationship. Eventually Santana pulled back and said, "Ready to let the madness in?"

"Not even a little," Brittany said, "but the sooner we start, the sooner it will be over and the sooner I'll be married."

**X**

Despite MTV's best efforts, both girls were escorted down the aisles by their respective fathers. Brittany and her dad first, followed by Tina and hers. From the second they saw one another, neither girl looked anywhere else. Tina was never so thankful for her father as when he, twice, saved her from tripping over her own feet on the way down the aisle, so lost was she in Brittany.

They locked hands the moment they were within reach of one another and never let go. The officiant gave a speech that neither girl heard. Although Brittany was apparently paying slightly more attention than Tina since she had to prompt Tina to recite the vows that she'd written.

Tina smiled and flushed in embarrassment. "Brittany, six years ago you blew into my life like a tornado and you promptly knocked over every pre-conceived notion I had about myself. I thought I was this mousey, wallflower type. I thought my opinions didn't really matter so I should keep them to myself… I thought I was 100% straight. You came into my life and made me feel strong and confident, beautiful and powerful, and most importantly loved like I'd never felt before.

"I still remember every single detail of our first date, from the smell and the taste of the homemade dinner you brought, to the songs we sang, to dancing in my parents' driveway to Alicia Keys. It took me three weeks to tell you, but I fell in love with you that very first night. Now here we are six years later, I'm more in love with you than ever and if you'll have me, I look forward to another sixty years or so of falling further in love with you and of earning your love in return."

Brittany with tears running down her cheeks and a smile on her lips said, "I will." Tina released her grip on Brittany's left hand to turn back to Rachel standing behind her who held her right index finger out where Brittany's ring was. Tina slid the simple gold band off of Rachel's finger and turned to place it on Brittany's shaking hand. Once the ring was in place, Tina retook hold of the hand and, in an unplanned moment, lifted it up as she placed a kiss on the knuckles of Brittany's hand including her rings.

Brittany didn't wait to be prompted. "I grew up on fairy tales. We used to read them every night before bed, stories about knights and princess, witches and dragons, and mostly about how the power of true love conquered all. I'd go to bed and I'd dream of a love like that, of that one special person that would come into my life and make everything better. People would try to make me feel dumb because I believed in things like that, and sometimes I listened to them when I shouldn't have and I doubted the power of love.

"Then you came along," Brittany paused to take a deep breath to calm her emotions, "We were friends before but when I asked you out, without even knowing what you were doing really, you were embracing that sense of wonder that had been so dear to me. You restored my belief in the power of love to overcome any obstacle. Without you, who knows what I'd have become? Luckily, I'll never have to find out.

"Tina, because of you my life _is_ a fairy tale. I'm happy every day. I have a job where I get to do the things I love and make a very good living doing it. I get to see my best friends almost every day. I get to indulge my sense of whimsy whenever I want. When I was little I used to dream of love, but I never dreamed that it would be as good as this. In just six years you've made all of my dreams come true, including some I didn't even know I wanted. I have to find new dreams now. My first new dream is for you to give me the chance to make all of your dreams come true, starting here and now. Will you let me?"

Tina nodded her head, "Yes," she said barely above a whisper. They separated hands again for Brittany to get Tina's ring from Santana. Brittany slid the ring on Tina's finger and kissed Tina's fingers and her rings just as Tina had done earlier.

The officiant said some more words that they weren't listening to. Rachel's song came up and they were still too lost in each other to pay even the slightest bit of attention. They'd heard her sing it a dozen times before. It was a cover of "Amazed" by a country band called Lonestar, although Rachel had de-countrified it considerably. They both knew it sounded amazing and they hoped that Rachel's singing here and now with this many people watching would help her professionally, but in the moment they cared about no one and nothing but one another.

"By the power vested in me by the State of New York, I now pronounce you wife and wife. You may kiss your bride." The words were barely out of the officiant's mouth before the girls' lips were locked together. They had planned on keeping the kiss simple and brief but that plan had gone out the window and it was now a deep, passionate kiss that went on for over two minutes, once again they were completely lost in each other. They only broke from their little world when he announced them as "Mrs. And Mrs. Brittany and Tina Pierce" (Because Cohen-Chang-Pierce is just too many last names).

**X**

The newlyweds were relieved when they got to the reception and remembered that they wisely chosen to have dinner served first. The wedding party was sat at a large round table along with Shelby, Quinn, and Beth who had been tickled to death to be the flower girl. Everyone ate and chatted amiably. Brittany and Tina noticed that there were other people around them for the first time today. The food was wonderful and a welcome sight to the brides who hadn't eaten since last night.

After the food came the entertainment and since Rachel got to sing during the service, to keep the peace they had promised that Mercedes could sing their first dance song, "You Don't Know My Name" by Alicia Keys. Then Sam wanted to play them a song so they let him sing the Father-Daughter Dance. He played "Daughter" by Loudon Wainright, which was fitting and worked well with Sam's vocal range.

Then the reception became a round robin karaoke performance which hadn't really been Brittany and Tina's intention when they'd given out the first two slots but they also didn't really care, most of their friends who tried to sing were pretty decent, a couple of people were kind of embarrassing but no one was completely unbearable. Rachel, Mercedes, and Sam were all pretty obviously trying to show off, knowing that some of all of their performances would be on MTV.

Eventually, Shue (because to most of them, calling him Will was too weird and he didn't really want them to call him Mr. Schuester anymore, so...compromise) wrangled all the New Directions kids in attendance, past and present, to the stage for what was supposed to be a rousing rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'" but really just came off as kind of weird.

Finn hadn't been able to make the wedding. His little girl, Eva, had fallen ill at the last possible second so they stayed home with her. Puck had been at the wedding and the reception, but had disappeared at some point, no one noticed who with. That left the most capable leading man as Artie, and his voice sounded best on a rock song with Quinn's, and a brother and sister team singing that song... well, Santana put it best when she said, "Just wanky."

**X**

The honeymoon was scheduled for three weeks in Africa on safari, and they did that. Tina had dreamt of doing that since she was little and Brittany had promised to start making Tina's dreams come true. Tina smiled so big for so long at the overwhelming experience that her cheeks hurt almost daily. After the three weeks were up, however, they didn't go home. They didn't _have_ to, Brittany had nothing significant planned and Tina had no job to go back to...so they didn't.

After Africa, they went to Spain, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, the islands. Then came the rest of Europe, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Athens, Belgrade, Bucharest, Brussels, London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Prague, eventually they went to every European capital and many other smaller towns in between.

They didn't so much as set foot on American soil for over six months. Because it was MTV, My Big Fat Celebrity Wedding was still playing on a loop and the licensing rights deal with Paramount was paying off well. Money was pouring in so they really had no desire to go back. Both of them had grown severely tired of being famous during their six months under a microscope. In Europe no one really cared who they were and it was wonderful.

The first time they came back was the anniversary of the beginning of all the madness, for the 2017 VMAs. Brittany was a three time winner the previous year so they wanted her to present this year. They actually both wound up presenting, not together, but they were back out of the country the next morning.

The next trip home was four months after the VMAs for Mercedes' wedding to her boyfriend of almost three years, Anthony Thrace, a sports agent based out of Atlanta. They were both called on to be bridesmaids. While they were around, they gave Artie hell for not telling them that he was running off the Greece to elope since they could have and would have jumped a train and been there. (As it turned out Miranda Cosgrove _was_ attracted to devastatingly handsome men who are smart and funny and musically inclined.) Mercedes' exposure through the show got her a record deal which had spawned a platinum selling album already with rumors of Grammys nominations to come.

After that they were back to bouncing around Europe for another two months before coming back for good a week in advance of their one year anniversary and the last contractual obligation to MTV, a one year later follow up interview.

Life in New York had become very interesting. Santana had officially taken over as Congresswoman Velazquez's Chief of Staff and all the long hours that entailed. Rachel's career had taken off as expected. First she got a small part in a big show, then a big part in a small show, and then the small show, Pressure and Time, had gotten bigger _because _of Rachel. It was still Off Broadway but the buzz was that that was only because investors were in a bidding war about who got to bring it to Broadway.

Artie, Miranda, and Rachel had made an independent film that won Best Drama at Sundance and got picked up for distribution by Lion's Gate and had done reasonably well. It wasn't exactly the gravy train but it did afford Artie the opportunity to move to New York like he wanted. It also got Miranda a Golden Globe nomination. She didn't win, but it breathed new life into her flagging career.

Brittany hadn't been completely idle in Europe over their year away; she'd written more than a dozen songs, so when they got home she went back into the recording studio to start on her long awaited second album.

The question became what was Tina going to do? She had an art degree and she loved to paint but she'd never done anything she wanted to show to anyone outside her immediate circle of friends. She was reasonably sure that she was never going to pursue art as a career. Strictly speaking they had enough money that she didn't _have_ to do anything. Tina felt weird just being a kept woman, though. She was undeniably famous, although it wasn't for anything she'd accomplished but rather just for whom she was and more precisely to whom she was married. Tina decided that if she had fame that she didn't feel she deserved, then the least she could was use it for something good.

She spent a lot of time working with the HRC and GLAAD. She did talk shows and TV shows, she guest judged on Idol, she even hosted the GLAAD Media Awards.

All of that had been done here and there, a morning here, an afternoon there, two days in San Francisco, a day in LA. Then in May the HRC Foundation offered her a fulltime advocate job. Tina was stunned and flattered but said that she had to think about it.

Tina was waiting at home that night when Brittany dragged herself in the front door. She had been doing dance rehearsals all week in anticipation for the tour that would inevitably follow the album's release. Brittany hadn't been on tour in over two years now and was definitely not use to the necessary level of physical exertion she had endured. She dropped her bags by the front door, kicked off her sneakers as she walked towards the couch, and finally pulled off the oversized t-shirt she was wearing, flinging it aside, leaving her in a sports bra and tight spandex running shorts before she collapsed onto the couch next to Tina, eyes focused on some non-distinct spot on the wall.

"Tired, baby?" Tina asked.

"_So_ tired," Brittany said, "I shoulda never let myself get this out of shape."

Tina leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, "You aren't out of shape," she said, "You're dancing ten hours a day. Anyone else would be dead by now." Brittany smiled without re-directing her gaze. "Can I make you some tea or coffee?'

"No more coffee," Brittany said, "I've already drank like a _gallon_ of it today. Tea sounds good though. Do we have any Sleepy Time?"

"Just picked up another box the other day because I know it's your fave," Tina said pushing herself up off the couch. She moved to the end and laid an extra pillow against the arm. "Lay back, sweetie, put your feet up. Tea will be ready in a minute. Do you want something to eat? Grilled cheese?" Brittany sighed contentedly which was as much of a confirmation as Tina needed. She quickly went about making the sandwich and tea.

When she returned to the living room, Brittany's head was leaned back against the arm of the couch and her eyes were shut. "Up," she said. Brittany quickly raised her legs up and Tina sat under them. Brittany draped her legs over Tina's lap and Tina settled the sandwich in Brittany's lap. Brittany raised her head and opened her eyes to look at her wife. Tina held forth the tea cup and saucer.

"You take such good care of me," Brittany said accepting the beverage with a smile, "You always have." She slowly sipped at her tea and nibbled on her sandwich while Tina gently massaged her legs and feet. Brittany variously sighed and moaned in relief of both the pain in her legs and the stress on her mind. When Brittany was done, Tina set her dishes aside and crawled out from under her wife to stand up offering her hands down to Brittany. "Why do I gotta get up?"

"Because I was gonna run us a bath," Tina said, "so I could work on your neck and shoulders."

Brittany sighed again and smiled brightly, "I feel so bad for the other dancers."

"And why's that?" Tina asked.

"Because they don't all have the perfect wife to come home to every night after Marco works them to death," Brittany said taking Tina's still outstretched hands. When she was up on her feet Brittany added, "But just a bath though, okay? Usually with us baths also mean sex and I'm just too tired tonight."

"It's fine," Tina said walking slowly backwards leading them towards their bedroom, "I sort of have some things we need to talk about anyway, serious relationship-type stuff."

Brittany dragged their progress to a halt immediately. "What? Why, what's wrong? Is it… I've been working too much, haven't I?"

"No, baby, relax," Tina said, "You _are_ working a lot but I had you all to myself every day for a year. After that we are beyond good. I understand that you have to go back to work now. It's nothing bad that we have to talk about, we just have to talk about it." Brittany didn't look any less concerned. "C'mon, let's go get in the bath and I promise you'll feel better. Nothing I have to say is the least bit upsetting."

Twenty minutes later, the bathroom smelled like Brittany's favorite Peaches and Cream bath salt and the Olive Blossom and Lilac aromatherapy candles that were lit nearby. The girls were settled into the tub, Tina behind Brittany steady working the tension out of her shoulders and neck. Brittany sighed contentedly yet again. "I think I'm relaxed enough to talk about whatever it is you wanna talk about," Brittany said pulling Tina's hands from her shoulders to wrap them around her front.

"I don't know if you've been keeping track but we just past eight years together," Tina said, "Married for almost two."

"Yeah," Brittany said.

"So, for a couple of months now I've been thinking about some things and… I got offered a job today at the HRC, full time."

"That's awesome," Brittany said, "Doing what?"

"As an advocate," Tina said, "Basically I'd be doing what I've been doing for them, going on TV and the radio, maybe some colleges and things like that, but just a lot more than I have been, probably several times a week."

"That could be cool," Brittany said, "Are you gonna say yes?"

"I don't know," Tina said.

"I've seen you when you're on TV. You're good at it. If wasn't always in favor of gay rights and gay marriage, then you'd have totally convinced me," Brittany said turning her head to smile at Tina.

"Thanks," Tina said, "but that's not it. We've talked about this before, several times, but you still want to have kids, right? Us running off to Europe for a year didn't suddenly make you want to hang onto your freedom or whatever, did it?"

"No, of course not," Brittany said, "I still totally want to make babies with you."

"Would you want to start making them soon?"

"How soon is soon?"

"Well," Tina said, "I was thinking I'd like it if one of us was pregnant sometime in the next year. Truthfully, I'd like it if the baby was here in a year, but that would mean getting us pregnant in the next three months and I don't even know if that's feasible."

"It's not for me," Brittany said, "The album is out in a month...not even a month, three weeks and then the tour. It's not a good time for me to get pregnant, and even if you wanted to carry him, I still don't want to be gone while you're here, pregnant and alone."

"Do they know how long the tour is going to run?"

"Four or five months at least," Brittany said.

"Okay," Tina said doing some quick mental calculations, "so we're looking at November then before we start trying?"

"Yeah," Brittany said, "So did you want to carry the baby or..."

"I do," Tina said, "Or at least I'm pretty sure. You know, I don't want there to be complications that affect your career while you're at the peak of your popularity. You shouldn't have to come off a five month tour and then carry our baby for nine months after."

Brittany craned her neck to look back at Tina, "Baby, I appreciate the concern but those aren't good reasons to base this decision off of. Do you want to be pregnant and carry our baby?"

"I do," Tina said, "You know me, I'm just a little scared of all the implications of it so I'm hedging a bit. I want to do this for us. I want to start our family."

"Do we want to ask someone we know to be a donor?" Brittany asked turning to lie back against Tina's chest again.

"Would that be weird?"

"I think it might be weird if it was like somebody we see all the time, like Artie," Brittany said, "but if it was someone that we know well enough to know he's not like a crazy person but that we don't interact with daily, that wouldn't be so bad I think."

"Not Puck," Tina said. Brittany shook her head against Tina in agreement. "Oh and not Finn either since he already has a wife and family, plus he's just way too damn big, I don't want to give birth to a fourteen pound baby."

Brittany chuckled, "So Kurt, Mike, or Sam, then?"

"Hmm."

"Thoughts?"

"You and Sam kind of look alike," Tina said.

"We do?" Brittany said.

"Well, on the most basic level," Tina clarified, "Blue eyes, blonde hair, fair skin, muscular. If he was our baby daddy then the baby would have a chance of looking a little like both of us."

"I like that," Brittany said, "You think he'll do it?"

"We can ask," Tina said, "If he doesn't want to, then we can go with an anonymous donor who looks like you. He's not the only blue eyed, blonde guy out there."

"Do you think Mike would be our baby daddy when it's my turn to have a one? So that she'll be Asian like you too?"

"We can ask," Tina said. She chuckled and then added, "A child with the genetics of Brittany Pierce and Mike Chang? That baby will come out of the womb dancing."

"Right?" Brittany said.

"So you dropped a couple of gender specific pronouns."

"Did I?"

Tina said, "You called the first baby 'him' and you called the second one...or the one you're having 'her'. Are you predicting the genders of children that haven't even been conceived yet?"

"I've, uh, dreamed about us and our family for a long time now. Since high school really, and this is always how it plays out. You have the first one and it's a boy. I have the next one a couple years later and it's a girl."

"What are their names in your dreams?"

"The first two are named Jasper and Simone," Brittany replied.

"First two? How many kids do we have in your dreams?"

"Five," Brittany said, "Jasper, Simone, Kirby, Alex, and Tomina. Kirby and Alex are twin girls although Alex identifies as gender fluid when she gets older."

"Really?"

"Totally," Brittany said, "People are mean to him/her about it sometimes but Jasper is a good big brother and sticks up for Alex, plus Santana taught Simone how to go all Lima Heights on people so she doesn't stand for people messing with her little sister-brother either." Brittany looked up at Tina and said, "Is that too many kids for you?"

"I... I guess not," Tina said, "I'd always thought four was a good number but I could be okay with five. We've got years to figure it out, right? Just tell me that you carry the twins."

**X**

Tina stood staring at the shelves of pregnancy tests asking herself which one felt was the lucky brand. It was entirely ridiculous, she knew. They were all the same basic technology, pee on stick wait for it to give you an answer, but Tina was really, really ready to pee on one and have it give her the answer that they wanted. It was March now and they were on round four of IVF and so far nothing. They'd gotten very excited after the first try in December when Tina had been four days late and gone out together and bought the test. They'd waited patiently together for the results and been disappointed together. January didn't even require the test. Tina's period had come right on time. Tina had been two days late in February but again it was a negative.

The bouts of hopefulness ending in horrible disappointment were starting to get to her. She wasn't about to give up, certainly not yet anyway, but she was starting to get angry at herself and her body. She cast nasty glares at every parent she saw on the street. She couldn't even flip past MTV anymore without getting irrationally upset. It would invariably be either the 5,000th re-run of My Big Fat Celebrity Wedding (which, for fuck's sake it had been two and a half years, why was that _still_ on?) or Season 10 of 16 and Pregnant or Teen Mom, and Tina would either get upset at all the stupid bitches getting pregnant when they didn't want to or at her own stupid smiling face.

Tina was late once more. This time she was _really_ late, 10 days to be precise. She'd never, ever been this late that she could remember, so she was very cautiously optimistic. The problem was now she'd psyched herself out and didn't know which test to take. She was more or less in a fugue state in the home pregnancy test aisle trying to get a hint as to which one would tell her what she wanted to hear… or rather read.

Her phone ringing woke her from her stupor. She pushed the accept button and held it to her ear. Before she could speak Santana's voice shouted in her ear, "Just buy one, bitch! Hell, buy the top five and get your ass over here and get to peeing. We have a rare night off together and you're wasting it standing around trying to find the right brand of pee stick. Could you be any more lame? P.S. your woman is starting to worry about you so handle your shit." Santana hung up without waiting for a response.

Twenty minutes later, Tina was home peeing on a stick while Brittany waited just outside the bathroom door (Tina had a shy bladder, even around Brittany, even after all these years.), and Rachel, Santana, Artie, and Miranda waited in the living room

Two minutes later a plus sign appeared on a pregnancy test.

Seconds later there were squeals of excitement coming from the bathroom.

Another minute later there were six more people cheering.

A week later there was a doctor's appointment and blurry dot on a sonogram.

A month later there as a heartbeat and both girls cried at the sound, it was so beautiful.

Two months later there was a penis on the sonogram.

That night there were lots of phone calls made to family and friends.

The next day there was a press release to the media.

Two weeks later all the soon-to-be grandparents showed up in New York to move the girls out of their apartment and into their new house, a four bedroom split level. There was also the first of several baby showers which mostly consisted of their parents giving them the things they'd used as babies that they'd had in storage.

Two days after the grandparents left, a box full of newborn sized baby boy clothes arrived from Mercedes. Her son, Eli, had outgrown them already.

Three months later all of the Glee Girls congregated in New York for the first time since the Big Fat Celebrity Wedding for yet another baby shower. (One more would be thrown by some of the HRC girls just before the due date, after he was already born.) Between the celebrating and the singing and the goofy games, Quinn announced her engagement to a man named Logan James, an artist from Columbus.

A month later, on December 3rd, just under three weeks before he was scheduled, Jasper Samuel Pierce made his grand entrance to the world at 23 inches, 7 pounds, 10.5 ounces, and once again half of Lima, Ohio descended on New York City.

Opting to forgo People Magazine and all similar publications, Jasper's image was all over Twitter within a day. He had his mom's black hair and Asian features with blue eyes and a big smile like his mommy.

"Meet the new man in my life!" tweeted Rachel.

"Only man besides my daddy I've ever loved," tweeted Santana.

"The littlest and bestest unicorn," tweeted Brittany.

"Eli's cousin. See the resemblance?" tweeted Mercedes.

"Clearly named after his favorite uncle," tweeted Sam.

" SammyEvans fav uncle my ass. He got swag. Uncle Artie show him how to use it," tweeted Artie.

A great many people fell in love with Jasper that day, none more than his mothers, but if there was a close second (or third, whatever), it was his Auntie Tana but she had no time to enjoy it. Her little dude was barely three months old when it was time to throw her name in the ring and start running for Congress. After 27 years in office, Nydia Velazquez announced her impending retirement and endorsed her Chief of Staff Santana Lopez to be her replacement. The endorsement was a huge boon but was by no means a sure thing, so for the next seven months Santana, Rachel, Nydia, and hundreds of staffers campaigned tirelessly, but never thanklessly. Come November, Santana Lopez was announced as the next Congresswoman from New York's 12th Congressional District.

After that it was on to more important matters, like Jasper's birthday. Brittany and Tina implored everyone not to go crazy for his first birthday since he wouldn't remember it but hardly anyone listened, tons of stuff, lots of it things that he couldn't use for years, poured in and then again three weeks later for Christmas. Between all that and two stay at home moms and six doting grandparents, he was officially spoiled.

**X**

June 5th, 2021 had started off like any other day, or at least like any other day that Tina had to work, with family breakfast and cartoons before Mommy and Jasper gave Mom big hugs and kisses before she went off to do a round of interviews on LGBTQ rights. Tina had finally gone back to work with the HRC in the spring. Brittany on the other hand was still completely loving being a stay at home mom. She hadn't done much since the tour after her second album came out over two years ago. She'd popped into the VMAs to pick up another Moon Man and do a performance, a performance that she repeated at the Grammys, but after that nothing. Now she was Jasper's Mommy and she loved every bit of it.

After Tina left, they watched a few more cartoons and then Jasper needed a bath so Brittany ran him one. They played Jasper's favorite bath game 'Get Mommy and The Whole Bathroom All Wet.' He was a champion at it from the start. He never lost. Once she got him clean, Brittany drained what little water was left in the tub and wrapped Jasper up in a big fluffy towel and parked him on the couch and turned on music (They tried to not let him watch too much TV.) where he would usually sit and listen while Brittany blanketed the bathroom floor with towels to sop up the mess and then go change clothes.

This time, however, Brittany was disrupted by her phone ringing. She suspected it was just Gina calling to remind her yet again that she had a contract with the record company and that she was obligated to do at least one more album before she was allowed to retire into professional mommy-hood. She thought to just ignore it because of this, but for whatever reason, she didn't. To her surprise it wasn't Gina, it was Quinn. "Hey, Q!" Brittany said answering the phone.

"Hey, Q!" Jasper immediately echoed across the room. "Mimic Mommy" was another one of his favorite games even if he was only eighteen months old and didn't know a whole lot of words.

She laughed at him a little before she noticed the sniffles coming over the phone. Quinn hadn't said anything yet, "Quinn, is something wrong? Are you okay?" Jasper did his best to echo that as well but mostly just the word "okay" came out in English, the rest was just toddler garble.

"B-Brittany are you… are you guys at home? Can I come see you?"

Brittany stepped out of the living room into the dining room and said, "Uh, Tina's at work right now, but I'm sure by the time you get here from Lima…"

"I'm not in Lima, B, I'm at Artie's," Quinn said, "I jumped a late train last night, got in this morning. Artie has a meeting he can't blow off and Miranda's shooting out of town. You and Jasper are there? Can I come see you? I really, really need a friend right now."

"Yeah! Yeah, of course," Brittany said, torn between being concerned for her friend and amused at her son still trying his best to copy her every sound in the other room. "Do you know where we live now?"

"No," she said.

"Okay, I'll text you the address," she said, "If you're as upset as you sound, please don't take transit, okay? I know a teacher's salary doesn't go far in New York. I'll pay for your cab. I don't want you getting lost on the stupid subway and end up in some horrible neighborhood, or God forbid, New Jersey."

"Will you call a cab for me?" she asked.

Just then Jasper came running into the room naked as the day he was born, his fluffy towel long gone shouting, "Woo woo! Woo woo!" and Brittany laughed at him but quickly apologized, "I'm sorry, Q, my son is currently streaking through the lower level of the house." Quinn laughed but there was obvious pain in her laughter. "I'm gonna hang up and call your cab now, okay? Then I'm gonna go get my exhibitionist son dressed. If you need me before you get here you can call me back, okay?"

"Okay," Quinn echoed much like Jasper had been doing moments earlier.

"Hey, whatever it is, Q, it's gonna be alright, okay?"

"I hope you're right," she said so incredibly sadly that it broke Brittany's heart.

"I'll see you in just a few minutes, sweetie," Brittany said turning on all the cheer she could muster. Quinn didn't say anything else so Brittany hung up. She quickly called up the cab company they use frequently giving them hers and Artie's addresses and her credit card number. After she hung up once more she went in search of her son.

After only a minute she located him back in the bathroom stomping in the puddles on the floor. "Alright, naked boy, we gotta go get you dressed now. We're about to have company from your Aunt Q."

"Onque," he echoed again. Brittany nabbed a couple of dirty towels out of the hamper in the corner and laid them out in the floor to try to sponge up as much of the water as possible. Then she scooped Jasper in her arms and took him across the hallway to his room. She laid him down and blew a raspberry on his belly eliciting a huge laugh from him. Raspberries on the belly were one of the funniest things in the world to Jasper. She put a diaper on him and then gave him another raspberry just because she was completely in love with the sound of her son's laughter.

She finished getting him dressed and scooped him up once more and carried him to her and Tina's bedroom. She flopped him down gently on the bed and he giggled again. "Stay right there. Mommy has to change clothes since someone got bathwater all over these. Who would do that?"

"My do," he said.

Brittany pulled her wet shirt over her head and dropped it in the laundry hamper, "Jasper's ornery," she said.

"Mommy pretty," he said as she pulled on a light peasant top.

Brittany smiled at the fact that her year and a half old son already knew how to butter a girl up. He was going to be a heart breaker far sooner than either of them were ready for. "Thank you, baby boy," she said as she shed her pajama pants and started to pull on a pair of shorts, "You're quite the handsome devil yourself." She walked up to the edge of the bed and held her arms open. "Hugs for Mommy?"

Jasper jumped to his feet and walked towards her, creeping slowly as he neared the edge of the bed. He'd developed a health respect for gravity shortly after learning to walk finding out the hard way that his mommies' bed was a long way off the floor. Once he made it to her, he quickly flung his arms around her neck and his legs around her upper torso just below her breasts clinging to her like a spider monkey. Brittany wrapped her arms around his back and hugged him tightly. "My yuh you," he said.

"I love you," Brittany said. She carried her barnacle of child back into his bedroom and deposited him in the floor. "You be good and play in here for a bit, okay kiddo? Mommy needs to go clean up the bathroom."

"My be good," Jasper said.

"I know." Brittany leaned down and kissed him on his head. She then went to the living room to grab Jasper's towel from the couch before returning to the bathroom and gathering the wet towels from the floor. She used Jasper's towel to get up the rest of the water depositing all them into the hamper. She would definitely have to do a load later. On the up side, she hadn't needed to mop the bathroom floor in months.

The doorbell rang only a few minutes later and Brittany responded immediately walking quickly to the front door. After checking the peep hole to make sure who it was, Brittany flung the door open to find Quinn standing there in clothes that she'd probably slept in on the train, eyes puffy and red, and most notably a lot skinnier than a seven month pregnant woman could possibly be.

Brittany reached out and guided Quinn into the house shutting the door behind her before pulling her friend into a tight hug. Quinn returned the hug even tighter and breaking out into a body wracking sob that cut to through to the heart of Brittany. She held Quinn as tightly as she could running one hand up to the back of her head holding Quinn firmly in place. Brittany's urge to cry was overwhelming but she was determined to stay strong for Quinn, so she held it in pouring her sympathy and strength into Quinn as she cried her eyes out onto Brittany's shoulder.

They stood there like that in a death grip embrace in the foyer for more than twenty minutes while Quinn cried herself out. Finally she took a deep breath and whispered against Brittany's neck, "I lost her." She sobbed again while Brittany stroked her long blonde hair and nodded against Quinn's shoulder.

Miscarriage, just the thought of it made Brittany's stomach flip. It was Brittany's single biggest fear about getting pregnant. She'd spent virtually every minute of the first three months Tina was carrying Jasper worried about it, and this was worse. Quinn had carried her baby almost to term only then to lose it. "I'm _so_ sorry, Quinn," Brittany said, "Let's go sit down, you've got to be exhausted." Quinn just nodded weakly and Brittany led them into the living room to sit on the couch. "Can I get you anything? Tea?" Quinn shook her head sadly. "That's such a silly thing to ask," Brittany said, "I don't even know why people do it. Like a cup of tea could ever make up for what you've lost."

"Why does God hate me, Brittany?" Quinn asked abruptly.

"He doesn't," Brittany quickly responded.

"I did everything in my power to be a good daughter to my parents. I made one bad decision and I get pregnant at 16 and kicked out of my home and disowned. I give birth to maybe the sweetest baby alive and I can't keep her. I bounce back from all that and get an education and a good job that I actually like, marry someone I _think_ is a good man, get pregnant and do everything right in taking care of her and she still dies anyway. It certainly _feels_ like God hates me."

"I know it looks that way and it's really easy to see the bad side of things right now, but you got kicked out of a house that you were miserable in and got adopted by The Abrams who love and accept you no matter what. You may not have got to keep Beth but you've always been a part of her life, she's always known you as Mom, and in letting Shelby adopt her you gave her an even bigger support system than she would have had otherwise and you made peace in the Glee Club, made us all into the friends that we are to this day. I don't know what's going on with Logan and I don't know why your little girl couldn't stay with us, but God doesn't hate you. I don't know anyone who does. I only know lots of people who love you, honey, all of us Glee Kids, your students, _your_ Glee Kids, your parents, your brother and sisters, and one more person. He doesn't know you yet but I know he's going to love you."

The corners of Quinn's mouth crept up ever so slightly. "Is he asleep?" she asked.

"No," Brittany said, "He's just playing in his room." She sat up straight and called out, "Hey Jasper, someone's here to see you, buddy. Can you come here?" A second later Brittany heard his bedroom door close and the very light sound of tiny feet walking down the hallway.

He appeared in the living room dragging a stuffed rabbit behind him. "My be good, Mommy," he said.

"Yes, buddy, you were very good for Mommy. Thank you," she smiled, "Now come here," she patted her bare legs, "I want you to come meet someone."

He toddled over and she reached to pick him up but he shrugged off saying, "Jasper do it. My'm big boy."

"Of course," Brittany said smiling at Quinn, "Silly Mommy to forget that Jasper is a big boy now." He handed over his rabbit and then climbed up onto the couch next to Brittany and the up onto Brittany's lap before sitting down. Brittany handed the bunny back which he squeezed to him tightly. "Jasper, this is one of your mommies' oldest friends. This is your Aunt Quinn."

"Hi," Quinn said forcing a smile. Brittany knew it was forced, she'd seen her do it a hundred times or more in their first two years of high school. It hadn't changed a bit. Brittany wanted to hope that meant that Quinn hadn't had much use for fake smiles recently, too busy smiling genuinely.

"Ong winn," Jasper tried her name but frowned at himself when he couldn't make the same sound as his mommy.

"It's tricky, isn't it?" Quinn said, "Eva just calls me Aunt Q, can you say that?"

"Aunt Q," he said smiling when he realized he figured it out.

"That's it," Brittany said clapping for him.

He looked up at Brittany and said, "Aunt Q sad?"

Quinn looked from Jasper to Brittany in amazement. "I think your son has your knack for perception."

"He totally does," Brittany responded to her before looking to Jasper, "Yeah buddy, Aunt Q's a little bit sad. Do you know anyone that can cheer her up?"

"My do!" he said excitedly standing up from Brittany's lap turning to drop himself unceremoniously onto Quinn's lap. He'd never really had anyone around him that didn't want him on them so he'd never learned to ask. Quinn didn't mind though. She wrapped an arm around him as he smiled up at her. He held his stuffed bunny up to her. "Play," he said.

"You want me to play with him?" Quinn asked. He nodded. Quinn took the offered rabbit in her left hand. "He's very soft. Does he have a name?"

"Conejo," Jasper said.

Quinn hiked an eyebrow curiously, "The bunny's name is Conejo?"

"Who gave you Conejo?" Brittany asked.

"Antana," Jasper said.

"Oh," Quinn said, "Right, Spanish for rabbit."

"Yeah," Brittany said, "He has a stuffed dog name Perro and a stuffed cat named Gato. We're trying to teach him Spanish too."

"Play," Jasper said again. The three of them played together in the living room for a little while. Brittany showed Quinn the beauty that was raspberries on the belly and the accompanying sound of Jasper's laughter. Soon Jasper wanted to play with the rest of his toys but he wasn't allowed to drag them all out into the living room so instead he dragged Quinn into his bedroom. Brittany let them play while she took care of some chores. She called Tina, Santana, and Rachel to let them know Quinn was in town but left it for Quinn to tell them why.

The three of them had leftover spaghetti for lunch which Quinn just picked at until Jasper told her that she had to eat. Like so many people in his life, she seemed completely incapable of saying no to him. Once she actually started eating it became immediately clear that she hadn't eaten much of anything in days and wound up stuffing herself so much that once Jasper's eyes started drooping shortly after they finished, Quinn offered to take a nap with him. Jasper liked this idea because it meant he'd get to sleep in the big bed.

After naptime, Artie, Tina, and Rachel were all over and eventually Quinn told them the whole story about losing the baby but also about why she'd fled Lima. It turned out that on Saturday night at the exact same Quinn was at the hospital being induced to she push the baby out, her husband Logan was in Columbus on a date with another woman, a date that just so happen to be in the same bar Puck was at. Puck took pictures on his phone and tailed the two of them back to a hotel room just to be absolutely certain that he was right about what was going on. No one was quite sure how he got into the room but when Logan woke up the next morning, it wasn't next to the 19 year old blonde he'd fallen asleep with, but with one righteously pissed off Noah Puckerman staring down at him.

When Quinn went to Columbus to confront Logan, still in the hospital after Puck put him there, he at least had the decency to not try denying it. Apparently, it wasn't a onetime thing and the girl wasn't the only girl. He did try to claim to be a sex addict and beg for another shot which was absolutely not happening. She'd already called her attorney on the way to the hospital and told him to go ahead with divorce proceedings. He said it wouldn't be complicated since they'd been married less than a year and didn't have much in the way of joint property and because Logan had been caught cheating.

She'd fled town on an impulse. She was supposed to be moving out of their apartment and back in with the Abrams, but had just jumped a train with only one small bag of clothes. She started to insist that she should go back to Lima, but no one was hearing that. A couple of phone calls later and they had recruited Puck, Finn, Lauren, Rachel's dads, Art Abrams, Stephen Chang, and Jeffery Pierce to go clear out Quinn's place. They insisted that Quinn stay in New York as long as her job would allow. Santana (via Face Time) even suggested Quinn quit and move to New York since they needed English teachers and Glee Club coaches there too. Quinn insisted she couldn't leave Beth, so one phone call later Shelby and Beth were New York bound for an extended vacation which was long overdue anyway, in Rachel's opinion.

They wound up staying for all of June and July. For the Fourth of July, they hosted a Glee Club reunion. The Schuesters came with their two year old daughter Micah. Mercedes and Anthony brought Eli. The Hudsons took the occasion to announce that they were pregnant again. By sheer random happenstance, Mike had run into Matt Rutherford on the streets of Chicago days before the event and dragged him with to the surprise of all. No one could really remember inviting Holly Holiday but she turned up anyway. Unfortunately, Puck was still out on bail from the assault and couldn't leave Ohio. Lauren stayed to keep him company. Sam was on a small venue tour promoting his new album and couldn't get away. And Kurt was in Milan working on some big project. Some of the younger generation Glee Kids, the ones Quinn was coaching, came as well, including the recently graduated Sarah Puckerman who was completely and utterly star struck at meeting Rachel, her idol.

Quinn spent the summer living in Brittany and Tina's guest room, spending lots of time with Jasper… spending lots of time making Jasper laugh. There was adult time too, and there was most certainly Beth time because she was never going to neglect that relationship (Beth was spending a lot of her time really getting to know Rachel who was insisting Beth also get to know New York), but mostly Quinn liked being with Jasper who had also inherited Brittany's ability to fill a room with joy.

But August eventually came and Quinn, Shelby, and Beth had to get back to their lives and start getting ready for another year of school. All ten of them were congregated at Penn Station awaiting their train. Shelby, Beth, and Rachel stood posing for a picture. Rachel and Beth were wearing custom made t-shirts that said Big Sister and Little Sister, respectively. "Thanks for doing this," Beth said, "People don't believe me when I tell them you're my sister."

"You should have told me sooner," Rachel said, "I could have shown up for Career Day."

"Would you?" Beth asked excitedly.

"Beth," Shelby chided her, "You can't…"

"No, it's fine," Rachel said to Shelby before looking back to Beth, "I'd love to. Just tell me when. I've been feeling like a bad big sister the last couple years anyway. We need to Skype more often. You're going to start having questions about boys or girls or both that you aren't going to want to talk to your moms about and if you talk to your father about them, he'll probably lock you in a tower to keep them all away from his little princess."

"I think he started building it a couple of years ago," Shelby said, "Uncle Finn's been helping and there's a room in there for Eva too."

"So clearly that would be job for Big Sister," Rachel said pointing at her t-shirt.

Across the platform, Santana bumped shoulders with Quinn who was standing silently. "What was her name?"

"Who?" Quinn replied.

"You know who," Santana said.

Quinn looked to the ground and studied the tile pattern hard. "Caroline," she said, "I mean, we hadn't agreed on it, but it was my choice for what to call her, "Caroline Demetria J… Abrams."

Santana nodded, "It's pretty," she said, "You should have a funeral… or maybe not a whole funeral with like a casket and stuff but just a memorial, so that you can say goodbye and really grieve. Don't let this ruin you. I don't think you would but… just don't, okay?"

"Isn't that what I've been doing?"

"No," Santana replied, "You've been letting go of the pain and that's _good_ but you still need to mourn. Then I want you to move up here. There's nothing keeping you in Lima and that place has never made you happy."

"Beth's in Lima," Quinn countered.

"And the only thing keeping Beth in Lima is you and Puck," Santana retorted, "You guys are ridiculous you know that? All four of you want to leave there but none of you will because no one will ask the other three to make a move. I was honestly stunned you spent four years at Kent."

"I can't ask them to uproot their lives again," Quinn explained, "Shelby moved once for me already."

"Okay, then Rachel will ask for you," Santana said, "Someday soon they're gonna stop screwing her around and give her that Tony and when they do she's going to want her mom there. After this summer, I know she wants Beth around always. When they agree to come all you have to do is say that you'll move with them and Puck will fall in. After the world class ass kicking he gave your ex, I'm sure we could get him on with Rachel's personal security detail or something."

"Why is this so important to you?" Quinn asked. "Why us?"

"Because you guys are my people, you, Puck, Baby B, Shelby. I mean, I want all my people here. I've accepted that Finn and Erin are never leaving Lima because they're happy there. Cedes and Big Man love A Town. Can't blame them and them being there just gives me a good excuse to go down there a couple times a year. Lauren hates New York, hates the crowds and the noise and whatever, so be it. Sammy's bound and determined to be a country music superstar which means the south, fine. Kurt will probably be spending the bulk of his life in Italy and when he's seventy he'll still be scooping up pretty Italian men, more power to him. You, Puck, and Chang I haven't given up on. I wants my peoples here."

"But you're not even here," Quinn said, "You're in Washington nine months of the year."

"No I'm not," Santana replied, "I'm only in Washington when there's a vote. Committee meetings and all that can be done by teleconferencing so that's what I do. I was elected to serve my district not hang out in DC. I haven't spent more than one night at a time in DC in seven months. New York is my home."

"Will you settle for an 'I'll think about it' then?"

"For now," Santana said, "Now give me a hug bitch." Quinn smiled as her arms went around Santana's waist and Santana pulled her in tight. They held there for a couple of minutes. "Okay, fuck it, I've gotta say this because I know you two won't. You know he loves you, right?"

"Logan?"

"Dear Jesus am I ever not talking about _that_ piece of crap," Santana said separating them, "I mean Puck. After everything, after all these years, you know he still loves you."

"I know," Quinn said softly, "and I love him too."

"But not like he loves you."

Quinn bit her lip and shook her head slowly. "I've tried," she murmured, "Believe me there have been a lot of moments over the course of the last twelve years that I've thought my life would be a lot easier if I could just give my heart to Noah Puckerman, but…" She shook her head.

"Yeah, I get you," Santana said, "Just make sure he knows so that he's not hanging on for nothing."

"He knows," Quinn said, "but I'll tell him again."

It wasn't long before their train was rolling into the station and time to board was upon them. Quinn quickly made a beeline for Tina, Brittany, and Jasper who was already reaching for Quinn by the time she got within arm's reach. Tina handed over the squirmy boy. His tiny arms wrapped around her neck and Quinn smiled reflexively. She looked to Tina and Brittany and said, "I can't ever thank you enough for this summer."

"And you don't have to," Tina said.

"Yeah," Brittany agreed, "We're family."

"Do you mind if I take a moment with him?" Quinn asked. They both said it was fine and gave them a bit of space. "Jasper," she said softly as he cinched in his grip on her, "I'm going to have to go soon."

"No leave," he said in a muffled voice his face buried in her neck.

"I have to," Quinn said, "I've got a job I have to go back to. I'm going to miss you _so_ much, little man. You'll probably never understand how much you've helped me this summer, Jasper. Thank you for being my buddy and letting me play and have fun with you."

"Welcome," he said still not moving.

"Hey, we're going to see each other soon, okay?" she said, "We're going to talk on the computer like you do with Nana and Pa, remember?"

"Nana," Jasper repeated letting of his grip on Quinn's neck and sitting up in her arms as a smile spread across his face. No one was quite sure what spell Naomi Cohen had cast over Jasper but the very mention of her name was almost always enough to make him perk up immediately.

"That's my happy boy," Quinn smiled at him, "I love you, Jasper."

"My yuh you, Aunt Q," he replied. Then Jasper mimicked something he'd seen done many times before. He reached up to brush his hand through Quinn's hair, leaned in, closed his eyes, and planted a kiss on Quinn's mouth just like his mommies always did when one of them had to leave.

Quinn, red faced and suppressing a laugh, pulled back and pressed a kiss into his messy black hair as his moms came back to retrieve him. "Do we need to have a talk with you with regards to your intentions towards our son?" Tina asked with a smile.

"Cause you're a little old for him, Q," Brittany said.

"Your mommies think they are _so_ funny, Jasper," Quinn said handing him back over, "Be good for your mommies, okay buddy?"

"My be good," he said.

"Bye," Quinn said softly to all of them. They all waved as she boarded the train along with Beth and Shelby and watched and waited as it pulled out of the station. As soon as it was out of sight, Jasper turned to Tina and said, "Talk a Nana."

Later on the train, after she was sure that Beth was out cold, Quinn looked to Shelby and said, "They want us to move to New York."

"Who's they?" Shelby replied.

"I don't know for sure. I think all of them," Quinn replied. "Santana was the one that said it and she wouldn't have if it wasn't something Rachel wasn't at least okay with, although I suspect she's a lot more than just okay. I know Artie would love having me and Beth around. Tina and Brittany didn't really say anything about it but I don't know why they wouldn't."

"Do you want to move to New York?" Shelby asked.

"I've been thinking about going for my Master's degree," Quinn said, "School would be a perfect excuse to move, but I'm not going to leave without you guys. Going to Kent while she was young was one thing, she wasn't going to remember much and I could still drive home fairly often, but now…" Quinn shook her head. "I'm not just going to disappear on her after I've spent years telling her how important she is to me."

"I miss New York," Shelby said, "I don't think I realized how much until this summer. Visiting was one thing, actually living there for two months was entirely another. I might be open to it. This summer also showed me that Beth would probably do well there. Do you know when you'd want to move? I mean, it's obviously too late to apply to any Master's programs for this year."

"No, yeah," Quinn said, "I also wouldn't want to just up and leave Puck to face whatever legal consequences on his own. I mean I'm sure he'd come with us and Santana basically already offered him a job working for Rachel, so I guess we'd need to see if he's facing any jail time and if so how much. Y'know, family decision, I guess."

**X**

"Hi, I'm Roxy Jordan for E! and I'm here at the Tonys. I'm here with the star of Pressure and Time, Rachel Berry."

"Hi," Rachel said waving her free hand at the camera.

"Now Rachel this is your third time being nominated, right? Three years in a row?"

"Yes," Rachel said, "It's been a great blessing."

"Are you thinking third time is going to be the charm? Is tonight the night you'll walk away with the Tony?" Roxy asked.

"That's so very hard to say," Rachel said, "This year, as the last two years, I'm in the company of some very talented women, so it would be the height of arrogance to say, yes, I'm going to win. It's a cliché but it really is an honor just to be nominated. Whether or not the nomination is lucky number three, we'll just have to wait to find out."

"Okay, and tonight, as seemingly always, you are surrounded by beautiful women," Roxy said, "Who are all these lovely ladies?"

"You know, you'll never find me complaining about the rigors of stardom," Rachel said, "and that's because, yes, everywhere I go, beautiful women. These particular beauties are my family… not all of my family, of course, my fathers are watching from home," she waved at the camera, "This of course is my girlfriend of twelve years, Santana Lopez. This pretty lady behind us is my mother, Shelby, and it's her birthday, by the way."

"Oh happy birthday," Roxy interjected,

"Thank you," Shelby replied.

"And the youngest member of your entourage?" Roxy asked.

"Is my little sister," Rachel said excitedly, "Beth. I'm so excited to have them all here with me tonight." Rachel pulled her into a hug and Beth blushed hard being in front of a camera.

"And you're all wearing Kurt Hummel?" Roxy asked.

"Always, always," answered Rachel.

"Well he's outdone himself tonight," Roxy replied, "You all look amazing. Best of luck tonight, Rachel."

"Thank you," Rachel said. They all moved along to the next reporter to answer all the same questions again before they made it inside. They were guided to their seats which were relatively close to the stage since Rachel was nominated and the buzz was that she was actually going to win this year… then again that was the buzz last year as well so Rachel was trying very hard not get her hopes too far up. Beth on the other hand had no such interest in remaining calm. Every tweet the girl had sent in the last two months had been tagged RachelOrRiot and she swore she wouldn't stop until it was trending. She actually didn't stop even after it started trending.

An hour into the ceremony and the category for Best Lead Actress in a Musical finally came up. Rachel had death grips on Santana and Beth's hands. Shelby had an arm draped over Beth's seat to rest her hand on Rachel's shoulder. One by one the nominees' names were read off read off and the tension mounted quickly, at least in one four seat section of the audience it did.

"And the winner is…" pause for dramatic effect, "Rachel Berry for Pressure and Time."

The audience was on their feet but none of them quicker than Santana and Rachel. Rachel kissed Santana and pulled her into a firm hug. "Congratulations," Santana said, "You deserve this. No one has ever deserved something more." Rachel still held the hug, "Now go get the award you've been dreaming of since you were a toddler."

Rachel released Santana and made her way up the aisle quickly. She climbed the steps up to the stage, accepted the award, and stepped up to the microphone. "We stocked up on waterproof mascara at our house this week and we're putting it to the test now," Rachel said her hands trembling but never her voice, "Since I was very young I've only ever had one dream of what I wanted to do with my life and that was be on Broadway, so needless to say I've won this award many, many times before in my dreams. This feels better than any dream ever could.

"I want to first and foremost say thank you to some of the most loyal and dedicated fans in the world without whom none of us would have jobs. It takes an army of people to put our show on and I wouldn't be here without them. Thank you to all my co-stars and the crew. Thank you to Dana McPherson our wonderful director and Malcolm Gregg for writing such wonderful words and songs. I feel truly blessed to get to play such a great character night in and night out.

"I'm also blessed to be able to share this night with my family. To my fathers watching at home, I can't begin to tell you what you mean to me. Your unwavering love and support kept me going through some really hard times. You lifted me up so that I could reach for the stars. To my mother here in the audience, my voice is yours, my grace is yours. Everything I am that led me here I got from you. Happy Birthday, Mom. To my little sister, Beth, who also doubles as my biggest fan who threatened to start a Twitter riot if I didn't win, you are the epitome of little sisters. You have all the potential in the world to be extraordinary at whatever you choose to do in life.

"And finally, to Santana Lopez, I don't know where I would be without you. I mean that very literally. You've been such a huge part of my life for so long that I can't even conceptualize where I would be if not for you. I know I wouldn't be anywhere near as happy as I am right now. Twelve years ago, I was at the bottom of the McKinley High social ladder… and you were at the top. You were the It Girl. You could have had anyone you wanted and you picked me. You took this bossy, obnoxious, sometimes poorly dressed, overachieving theater nerd and you found something to love in me. And you've stuck by me for all of these years even when I've given you so many reasons to run away as fast as you can. I love you more than words could ever express. I'm so proud of you and what you've achieved and of us and what we have together."

Twenty minutes later, Santana, Shelby, and Beth had been escorted backstage per Rachel's request. Rachel had changed dresses and her hair had been redone, it was now pinned up to make it look much shorter. They all quickly exchanged hugs and congratulated Rachel. "Mom," Rachel said, "I was hoping you could help me warm up for my performance. Santana can keep Beth company, right?" Santana nodded.

"I'd love to," Shelby said.

"Come on, Baby B," Santana said, "Let's clear out and let them work. Maybe we can find craft services. I'm starving."

Shelby and Rachel ran through their scales and all the vocal warm-ups Shelby knew which was quite a lot considering. Finally after several minutes of warm-ups, Rachel huffed out a breath and said, "Do you think we're properly prepared?"

"All set to wow the audience," Shelby said.

"Okay good," Rachel said, "Then we need to get you to make-up."

"Okay," Shelby replied, "Wait what?"

"It's all taken care of," Rachel said, "I'll introduce you. You'll do 'All That Jazz' then you prompt us and we'll do 'Cell Block Tango'." All the while Rachel was talking she was also leading them towards a make-up chair.

Shelby settled into the chair as someone began applying make-up to her face, neck, and shoulders. "I… Rachel…" she stammered, "This is… you're serious?"

"Happy Birthday," Rachel said, "It's the only thing I could think to get you."

Shelby laughed heartily at this. "You know, most kids when they don't know what to get a parent go for flowers or a nice dinner." Rachel just shrugged one shoulder. "You're an amazing daughter, Rachel."

"Thanks," Rachel said, "Now I've got to go see to my murderesses."

"Your sister isn't one of them is she?"

"No," Rachel reassured her, "By now, Beth should be back out in the audience with Artie and Jasper. I'll see you in a minute."

Several long minutes past and Shelby tried to contain her nervousness. She knew the song backwards. She could even sing it in French if she'd had the inclination. Eventually, after about ten minutes a PA showed her to her mark and told her to wait for Rachel's introduction. She stood on her mark for another ten minutes until she heard, "Please welcome back to the stage, tonight's winner for Best Lead Actress in a Musical, Rachel Berry." Shelby's heart swelled with pride at the sound of those words once again.

When the applause died down, Shelby heard Rachel speak. "As I said earlier, it's my mother's birthday tonight and she's difficult to shop for, or she can be. She doesn't really want a lot of things, but one thing that she's always wanted but never gotten was an opportunity to perform for all of you. For ten years between having me and when my little sister came along, she tried without much success to make it here. Her favorite musical is Chicago and her dream role is Velma Kelly, so now here to sing 'All That Jazz' please give a warm welcome to my mother, Shelby Corcoran."

Shelby strode out onto the stage with determination. Rachel walked back her direction passing off her microphone as they crossed. Shelby came to a stop center stage held up the mic and the audience went quiet. She said, "This was a complete surprise to me. Rachel only told me I was doing this about twenty minutes ago." She looked down to the long flowing gown that she'd been wearing. "I feel completely overdressed to do this number, but when am I going to get this opportunity again? Hit it." The music began and Shelby began to run through the choreography for the song.

Come on, Babe  
Why don't we paint the town?  
And All That Jazz

I'm gonna rouge my knees  
And roll my stockings down  
And All That Jazz.

Start the car  
I know a whoopee spot  
Where the gin is cold  
but the piano's hot  
It's just a noisy hall  
Where there's a nightly brawl

And All

That

Jazz!

Shelby hadn't sung a song for an audience in over five years. She hadn't sung one for an audience that wasn't the New Directions or Vocal Adrenaline in far longer and she'd forgotten how much she missed it. She realized immediately that she hadn't lost a step. She had this crowd wrapped around her finger. She sang on and tried not to think about the fact that this was on television.

No, I'm no one's wife  
But, oh, I love my life  
And All That Jazz!

She held the last note as long as she could, just to enjoy the moment. The audience thundered in applause and Shelby's smile stretched nearly to her ears. As the applause carried on, six shadowed figures walked out on stage dragging wooden chairs with them. They lined up behind Shelby and parked themselves in their chairs. "Thank you," Shelby said, "Thank you. Thank you." Eventually the cheers waned and she said, "Thank you so much, and now, the six merry murderesses of The Cook County Jail and their rendition of 'The Cell Block Tango'."

Shelby exited the stage as a spotlight shone down on Tina. "Pop!"

The next spotlight hit Brittany seated beside her. "Six!"

Spotlight number three found Santana. "Squish!"

Another spotlight illuminated Quinn. "Uh Uh!"

Next was Rachel in her full Roxy make-up. "Cicero!"

The last tight came on to reveal Mercedes. "Lipschitz!"

Pop. Six. Squish. Uh Uh. Cicero. Lipschitz!

Pop. Six. Squish. Uh Uh. Cicero. Lipschitz!

Pop. Six. Squish. Uh Uh. Cicero. Lipschitz!

Pop. Six. Squish. Uh Uh. Cicero. Lipschitz!

He had it coming  
He had it coming  
He only had himself to blame  
If you'd have been there  
If you'd have seen it

"I betcha you would have done the same!" Rachel sang.

**X**

Two weeks after the Tonys, The Pierce family was enjoying an evening at home. Tina and Jasper were playing together in the floor as Brittany watched from the couch. The TV was on in the background. Santana was taking apart all the Fox News people who were trying to make her look bad for singing that song with them. She was completely crushing any semblance of an argument Sean Hannity could muster and making him look like a complete fool. Tina particularly liked watching Santana go after them because exactly none of them stood a chance against her.

Jasper was playing one of his favorite games, Stack up the Blocks and Knock Them Over. He did it over and over again and never grew even a little tired of it. Every time the blocks hit the floor he would howl with delight.

Santana's segment ended so Tina clicked off the TV and lay back stretching out on the floor closing her eyes. Jasper looked at her and said, "What do, Mom?"

"I'm just laying here," Tina said, "Mom's tired."

"Not too tired, I hope," Brittany said from the couch, "Mommy has needs."

Tina smiled eyes still closed but said nothing. Soon she felt little hands on her stomach and flexed her abdominals in response. Jasper sat down on her belly momentarily before laying down on her resting his head on her chest. She brought her arms up to wrap them around him. They lay there like that for a minute before Tina heard the click of their digital camera and peeked one eye open at Brittany. "That might be the most adorable thing ever, like even more than kittens."

Brittany noticed that Jasper didn't react at all to the sound of the camera. He'd heard them going off so often in his life, she wondered if he ever registered the sound of them anymore. When she and Tina had first moved to New York after high school, their first apartment was close to a train track and at first they'd wake up in the middle of the night when a train passed, but by the end of sophomore year they didn't even notice them anymore, even when they were awake. Jasper had two mommies that loved to take his picture plus six grandparents, nine great grandparents, and more than a dozen aunts and uncles that all liked to fuss over him. In his two years and four months of life there were probably more than a million pictures of him. She wondered if camera clicks were like the trains to him.

This thought was disrupted by Tina's phone ringing. It was sitting directly in front of her on the coffee table so she looked over at the ID screen. "It's your mom, T."

"Jas, hop up, buddy," Tina said as she sat up with him, "I gotta talk to your Nana."

"Nana!" he said excitedly.

"I'll let you talk to her as soon as I'm done," Tina said, "I promise." Brittany handed the phone and scooped up Jasper setting him down on her lap once she was back to the couch. "Hey, mom," Tina said answering the phone. She listened for a moment before saying, "Two weeks? I don't think that would be a problem. Why, what's going on?" Tina's eyes pinched and her eyebrows knit together. "You're what? Why?" Tina rolled her eyes and said, "But why now? You guys have been together…" Tina fell silent again. "Yes, I'll talk to Brittany about it but I'm sure it's fine. Okay. Okay. Jasper wants to talk to you," Tina said. "Okay, give me just a couple minutes. I'll tell him. Love you, too. Bye." She hung up the phone and quickly said, "Jasper, Nana's going to call you on the computer so she can see your smiling face, okay?"

He nodded and hopped up off the couch to head into the dining room. Whenever he got to use the computer it was mostly for Skyping one or more of his grandparents or Quinn, he always had to sit at the dining room table where he was unlikely to damage the computer in any way. Tina followed him to get him set up and talking. Brittany followed her but remained just outside of the room. Sure enough, soon after she heard Jasper greet Naomi, Tina walked back out into the family room with a strange look on her face. "T, what's wrong? Cause it kinda sounded like your parents are splitting up."

"They're… they're not," Tina said, "They're actually getting married."

"What?" Brittany asked, "Why?

"That's what I said," Tina said, "I don't know, apparently after 30 something years of 'we don't need a piece of paper to prove our love' they woke up one day and decided they wanted the piece of paper or something. They're coming here in two weeks so they want to have the ceremony in Central Park, just us and them and a minister. She said Rachel and Santana and Miranda and Artie are welcome to come too if they like. Dad's going to call you in the morning. He wants you and Jasper to be his Best Men."

"We should tell them," Brittany said, "For their wedding present."

"About you being pregnant?" Tina verified, "It's still kind of early."

"I'm nine weeks," Brittany said, "In two weeks it will be eleven. That's only a week early and we can swear them to secrecy for a week. And maybe Jasper can be on your side with Naomi, since I can't exactly give you Simone to hold for the ceremony."

Tina smiled and said, "Okay."

**X**

As Student Body President and Vice President of their graduating class, respectively, it was Quinn and Mike's duty to organize the class reunions and the ten year was shaping up to be huge. They'd had a five year but very few people had bothered to come since most people had just been finishing up undergrad degrees and starting jobs or starting graduate work. The 10 year however was set to be big. The entire NYC crowd had said they were coming, so of course that meant that everyone was coming. The five year had been in the McKinley gym. The ten year was being hosted in the convention hall in Lima's Hilton Hotel.

Mike was inside making sure the DJ had everything he needed for the night while Quinn was manning the greeting area waiting for more arrivals. There were already a couple dozen of their classmates inside along with many of the current and past faculty, Will, Emma, Shannon, Sue, Holly, the now retired Principal Figgins had turned up. He'd spent the first twenty minutes telling Will what a great job he'd done running the school since he left, which was debatable, but whatever. Shelby was already inside as well. Puck was due to be bringing Beth by at any moment.

The first of the Glee Kids to arrive was, unsurprisingly, Finn with his wife and daughter in tow. Finn was happy and smiling, he gave Quinn a huge hug like he hadn't just seen her at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago, like they weren't at all the same PTA meetings. His hug was as engulfing as ever and he now permanently smelled like something from the tire shop, the same thing that Burt Hummel smells like every time Quinn saw him even though he'd been retired for a couple of years now. Erin Hudson looked exhausted which wasn't the least bit surprising since she'd just had a baby three months previously, a boy they'd named Christopher after Finn's dad. He was apparently at Burt and Carole's for the night, a fact that eight year old Eva Hudson was quick to point out was entirely unfair since she was apparently being forced to attend and would clearly be anywhere but here. "She's in trouble," Finn explained after the girls went in search of refreshments, "and she won't follow her punishment if we leave her home with Mom and Burt and they won't make her."

Puck and Beth showed up next. "Need a hand out here?" Puck asked. Quinn stifled the urge to roll her eyes at him. Ever since the incident with Logan, Puck had been around. He was constantly finding something to fix or something that needed done in the vicinity of Quinn. When she'd gotten home from New York, Quinn made very clear what the situation between them was and he understood it. Honestly she didn't think he was even really trying to get back into her pants, or at least no more than he was always trying to get in every girl's pants anyway. Quinn theorized that he felt guilty because Quinn got hurt after basically everyone that had moved off had told him to look out for her, which in retrospect was kind of shitty of them because they all knew how he was about that kind of thing, how personally he took it, so that's why she let him hang around all the time even though she often wished he was elsewhere.

"Sure," Quinn said with a smile that she tried her best to make look sincere but she knew he probably saw through anyway.

"So is anyone here yet?" Beth asked.

"Your Uncle Finn, Aunt Erin, and Eva are already inside," Quinn said, "plus you know, all three of you parents."

Beth huffed and rolled her eyes, the spitting image of her sister, "Anyone that I don't see every day?"

Quinn raised her eyebrow at her child and stared her down for a long minute before saying, "Holly's inside." Beth's face lit up but she didn't immediately take off. Instead she looked to Quinn for permission. "Go," Quinn said with a quick nod of her head.

"Thank you!" Beth said racing to the reception hall door. "I love you guys," she called back them before disappearing inside.

"Love you, too," Quinn and Puck echoed in unison even though they both knew she was long gone.

A few more people trickled in, some familiar faces that they recognized immediately, some that had to identify themselves. Quinn felt a tiny bit guilty about the people she didn't recognize because surely they all recognized her, but she tended to let it go because she was sure that most only recognized her because of Beth.

Dave Karofsky and his husband Michael arrived. Dave and Puck exchanged a chest bump that two men who were pushing 30 really shouldn't be doing. It was definitely good to see Dave under better circumstances. He'd gotten into the University of Illinois and majored in sports management. He hadn't been back to Lima much but he had been home back in September for his father's funeral and to make sure that Karofsky Motors was in good hands without him. No one could blame Dave for not sticking around. While things had gotten better about its attitude towards homosexuality, no one was going to call Lima, Ohio gay friendly any time soon.

More people came and went. Quinn and Puck greeted them and handed out name tags. Quinn was mostly on autopilot hoping that everything inside was going well and that Mike would come get her if there was an issue, until the extremely odd sight of Kurt Hummel and Jasper Pierce walking in together hand-in-hand brought her back to the present.

Kurt was dressed to impress as always in something he'd undoubtedly designed himself. Jasper was likewise dressed to the nines in black slacks, a white dress shirt, a black tie, and black suspenders. "I was asked to escort this young man into your care," Kurt said to Quinn who was already walking around the table to them.

"Hi, Aunt Q!" Jasper said waving excitedly.

"Hi Jasper, how's my favorite guy?" Quinn replied enthusiastically as she knelt down to be eye level with him.

"I good," he answered. "Aunt Q not sad anymore?"

"No, buddy," Quinn shook her head quickly, "I'm not sad anymore, thanks to you. You want to come hang out with me and Uncle Puck?"

"Yeah," he said reaching for her to pick him up.

Quinn scooped him up, thanked Kurt, and took him back behind their table. She pulled out her phone and quickly dialed up Tina. "I've got Jasper," Quinn said when Tina answered, "Is everything okay?"

"Good, thank you," Tina said, "We're just down the hall in the ladies' room. Brittany needed a couple minutes."

"But everything's okay?" Quinn asked again, "With the…"

"Just nausea," Tina said, "We'll be there in a few minutes."

"Take your time," Quinn said, "He's fine here with me."

"You Uncle Puck?" Jasper asked as soon as Quinn hung up.

"That's me, Little Man," he answered.

"Aunt Tana talk about you sometime," he said.

"What does she say?" Puck asked interested.

"Bad words," he said without elaboration. Quinn laughed at him and kissed him in his messy hair. Quickly changing subjects Jasper said, "Aunt Q look pretty."

"Thank you buddy," Quinn said hugging him to her.

Before long Katie Washington (or Katherine Stone, as her name was now) made her way in. She was the turbo bitch that had taken over Cheerios after Santana, Rachel, and Brittany had quit the squad Junior Year over the cannon incident. She'd tried to reinstate the slushie facial but failed in her campaign to get a slushie machine re-installed at the school. She did manage to rally the hockey team to join forces in being enormous assholes to the Glee Club. Quinn had secretly been hoping that she'd gotten really fat in the last ten years. No such luck. "Hey Quinn," she smiled her voice full of fake cheer, "is this dapper young man yours?"

"I no have diaper," Jasper said, "I big boy."

"She didn't say diaper, Jasper. She said dapper, which is just another way to say you look very handsome," Quinn explained to him.

"Mommy say I snazzy," he said with a proud smile.

"You're that too, buddy," Quinn said. She looked back to Katie and said, "And no, Katie, he's not my son, he's just my best guy. This is Jasper Pierce." He waved.

"As in _Brittany_ Pierce?" Quinn nodded, "Did she end up with Mike Chang?"

"No," Quinn said drawing it out to convey Katie's own stupidity to her, "She ended up with Tina Cohen-Chang, the girl she dated for two and half years of high school."

"Oh," Katie said contemptuously, "She still hasn't outgrown that phase? Then I'll be praying for that boy and all the damage they're doing to him. They are awful people and…"

"You no talk bad bout my mommies!" Jasper said suddenly startling Katie into shutting up.

"You heard the man, Katie," Quinn said before she could speak, "Take your homophobia and your ignorance and hit the bricks."

Katie left in a huff and Puck laughed as she went. "Baby Badass," he said.

Quinn quickly backhanded him in the shoulder, "Watch your language. It's bad enough you gave our kid you nasty foul mouth, you have to try to corrupt him too?"

"He say bad word," Jasper said to Quinn.

"Yep," Quinn confirmed, "He owes a dollar. They cost you double each time, Puck. The next one costs you two dollars, then four, then eight, and it's a long night, so… watch your mouth or you'll find yourself massively in debt to the swear jar."

Mike wandered up behind the table and said, "Everything going alright out here? People said they heard shouting. Hey Puck." Puck gave Mike a half nod.

Quinn turned herself and Jasper to face him, "Everything's fine," she said with a smile, "I've got my favorite guy here. What could be wrong?"

Mike quirked an eyebrow, "So this is Jasper? Man, they grow up fast. He hasn't tried to _make out _with you again, has he?"

"There was a first time?" Puck asked laughing, "He tried to make out with you before?"

"He succeeded before," Mike corrected, "Last summer."

Puck looked to Quinn for confirmation of this. She nodded and said, "As we were saying goodbye at the train station, he planted one on me."

Puck stood and closed the short distance between him and Quinn. He held his fist out and said, "Can I get a brofist from the tiny stud?" Growing up around his Uncle Artie, Jasper knew how to do a fist bump and quickly obliged Puck. "Man, stealing first from the Prom Queen at one year old. That is epic sized bal… awesome," Puck corrected himself.

Mike pointed at his eyes and then at Jasper, "I'm watching you, kid."

Puck, back at his seat, smirked at Mike, "Don't be hatin just because a two year old has more game than you, Chang, just because it took you ten years to do what he got done in two months."

"Yeah, okay," Mike scoffed, "A two year old has game. Sure." Quinn looked at him with a smile barely holding in a laugh. "What?" he asked.

She shrugged and said, "He told me he loved me, brushed my hair back over my ear, went left. The kid's got game. If I were just 25 years younger…" Quinn sighed wistfully. She knew she probably shouldn't be messing with Mike like this but the guy had a jealousy streak a mile wide when it came to her and it got old really quick, especially when it was directed at a two year old.

"You're a crazy person _and_ you're not allowed anywhere near my nephew," Mike said.

"Yeah," Quinn scoffed, "A Chinese kid with his nose constantly buried in whatever video game he's obsessed with this week, that's really what I'm looking for in my life." Quinn knit her brow in confusion momentarily. "Wait, that describes you, too. Why am I with you again?" she teased.

Mike scoffed and said, "You're such a jerk." He turned and went back into the reunion.

"He's jealous of a two year old. Men are such idiots," Quinn said, "Why can't I just date you, Jasper?"

"You no in New York, Aunt Q," he said.

Quinn laughed at the simplicity of his statement as though _that _were the only obstacle in their hypothetical romance, but when she looked up she found Brittany and Tina standing at the table. "So like _seriously_," Tina asked, "Do we need to have a discussion about your intentions towards our son?"

"Mommy feel better?" Jasper asked.

"Mommy feels better," Brittany confirmed, "Thank you for asking, my sweet boy. Now if you could get your sister to stop making me feel sick in the first place."

Quinn stood up hefting Jasper up on her hip to circle around the table once more. As she went she took in the sight of a six month pregnant Brittany. She was pretty jealous of the way she looked, aside from her perfectly round belly she seemingly hadn't gained even a single pound, she didn't look exhausted from lack of sleep, nor did she look she'd just been sick, all of which seemed tremendously unfair. Then she looked down to make sure she wasn't about to trip while carrying her favorite nephew. "Brittany honey, where are your shoes?"

"They're all back in New York," she said. Quinn looked at her confused. "I haven't worn any in months."

"Are your ankles swelling?" Quinn asked, "Because they don't look it."

"No, that's not it," Brittany said.

"She hasn't worn shoes since Santana mentioned the phrase 'barefoot and pregnant' to her," Tina supplied.

"And thought that sounded totally fun, and I was right," Brittany said, "My feet are totally tough from years and years of dancing so it's really not a big deal." She looked from Quinn to Jasper, "You been having fun with Aunt Q?"

Jasper leaned into her and said, "Yeah, she make mean girl go way."

"Katie Washington," Quinn clarified, "She started in. She hasn't changed at all. I sent her on her way before she said anything too terrible."

"Thanks," Tina said, "You ready to go in, Jas?"

He looked to Quinn who said, "Go ahead. I'll be there in just a little bit. Beth's inside. I'm sure she'll be happy to see you again."

Twenty minutes after the Pierce Family's arrival came Rachel and Santana's entrance and in typical fashion for them, there was no shortage of drama. Rachel had systematically made her way to every ex-cheerleader, hockey player, and football player who had ever bullied her and introduced herself as such, "Hello, I'm Rachel Berry. I'm an extremely successful actress, star of both stage and screen. I own a spacious loft in Red Hook, Brooklyn in New York City. I've recently won a Tony Award. I'm in a committed long-term relationship with a United States Congresswoman. I'm happy, rich, and extremely satisfied sexually. What have you done with your life?"

Emma Schuester eventually need a breather from being around so many people (Her OCD was under control, but not gone entirely.) so she sent Quinn in to enjoy her reunion. She'd wandered around the hall and talked to several people that she'd not seen in years. Eventually she joined a table full of her fellow Glee Kids. She pulled herself up a chair between Tina and Artie and immediately Jasper was back in her lap. They talked about all manner of things. Eventually, attention shifted to Quinn, "So Quinn," Mercedes asked, "how's our old Glee Club doin?"

"We've got Nationals in a month," she said.

"We gonna win?" Finn asked.

Quinn sighed. "I'd just about give a kidney to have Sarah Puckerman back but I think we've got a good chance."

"Is anything like it used to be?" Kurt asked.

"You mean, day-to-day?" Quinn asked and he nodded, "Oh yeah," Quinn said, "It's still high school so the names and faces change but the song remains the same. You're sharp and you're stepping on my cues and why does she get the lead and I'm quitting and blah blah blah."

"And lesbian love drama," added Sam.

"Oh God, yes, how can I forget that?" Quinn said. More than half the table looked at her expectantly. "Stacy Evans and Alexis Abrams," she clarified, "Imagine Santana and Rachel Junior Year but Santana is just as determined to be the lead as Rachel was, plus throw in that they're a year apart. Alexis is graduating this year. Stacy has a year to go." Looks of terror were shared by pretty much all. "Yeah, that's about right."

"As if this Glee Club needed to be any more incestuous," Mike said.

Tina quickly flung a handful of grapes from Jasper's plate at him, "Children present, Mike. Things that don't need to be discussed."

They talked for a while longer. The DJ called all the couples to the floor for a slow dance. Mike had left to go check on things so Quinn sat with Jasper and Sam and they caught up on a lot of things. Sam was still on the road most of the time. He seemed to really enjoy it despite the rootlessness of it. He was doing well for himself. He hadn't blown up huge or anything but he wasn't hurting for money either. Quinn was talking about the school and the mess that was her personal life when she got a text from Mike saying that something needed her attention. "Can you watch him?" Quinn asked.

"Uh, I don't know," he said.

"What?" she said, "What's not to know? He's a great kid, just sit here with him for a couple of minutes until they come back."

"I just…"

"Sam, come on. He's a toddler not a time bomb," Quinn rolled her eyes at him, "Don't act like I don't know that you're great with kids."

"But what if I get attached to him?" Sam said.

"That happens to everybody," Quinn said, "Jasper's a great kid."

"It's a bigger problem for me," Sam said.

Quinn was confused and growing ever more annoyed. She looked back and forth between Sam and Jasper trying to figure out what Sam's deal was with this extremely sweet kid with the huge smile. Then it finally hit her. It was the same smile. "You're his…"

"Yeah," Sam said, "and I dunno, it's kinda weird."

"Okay," Quinn said. She pulled out her phone and sent Mike a text saying it would be a couple of minutes. The song ended and Brittany and Tina kept dancing through the next song but Rachel returned to the table who was happy to take him and Quinn went to attend to a crisis which turned out to be nothing but a cover for her and Mike to slip away from everyone. Quinn didn't fully understand why he felt they needed to slip away to make out, it's not like they weren't all adults and even if they did need to hide from someone (Quinn guessed Mike was trying to spare Puck), wouldn't it have been easier to just slip away instead of making up some story about a crisis?

Twenty minutes later, Quinn was slipping into the ladies' room to fix her make-up only to find Brittany and Tina canoodling within. "Sorry," Quinn said turning to leave.

"It's okay, Quinn," Brittany said.

"We're not doing anything you haven't seen us doing since we were 16," Tina said.

"Now if you'd have been here like five minutes earlier…" Brittany waggled her eyebrows.

"Seriously, guys, anyone could have walked in here," Quinn said.

"Yes, they could have," Brittany smiled.

Quinn arched an eyebrow. "You want to be walked in on? You actually like the idea of people seeing you like that?" Brittany just smiled at her. "You know Jasper's just in the next room."

"Jasper's pretty much always in the next room when we have sex," Tina said, "Usually, he's asleep, but not always. My pregnant wife has needs, Quinn."

"Insatiable," Quinn shook her head.

"Listen, Q, I totally love you and all but no matter how much you flirt with me, I'm not gonna have a threesome with you, okay?" Brittany smirked at her, "Your relationship to our family is complicated enough already."

"How do you figure?" Quinn asked finally cross the room to the line of sinks.

"You mean besides your obvious crush on our son?" Tina teased. Quinn rolled her eyes.

"Or the fact that you totally came in here to cover up the fact that you just had a moment in a closet somewhere with our daughter's donor?"

"Or the fact that I used to date your son's?" Quinn added.

"He told you?" Tina asked.

"I mostly put it together on my own," Quinn said, "He just confirmed it. I'm sorry if I wasn't supposed to know."

"It's okay," Brittany said, "We just don't want it getting around until after Jasper's old enough to like ask about that sort of thing on his own and we can tell him ourselves. I know you won't tell him or anyone else for that matter."

"Of course," Quinn said, "And just so we're all clear here, Mike is Simone's donor? He's who you're accusing me of sneaking around in closets with, right?"

"Yes," they both said.

"Okay," Quinn said, "For the record, hiding in closets is his idea, not mine. I guess he thinks he's protecting Puck, which is weird because he knows that Puck knows about us, but whatever, I guess. Look, can I ask you guys a favor… you know, another one?"

"Find a new donor next time?" Tina guessed.

"No," Quinn said, "Our relationship…if it even counts as that… whatever's between Mike and I isn't nearly as serious as to lay claim to his reproductive rights."

"Baby," Brittany said to Tina, "Have you noticed that English Teacher Quinn sounds a lot like Sophomore Year Rachel?"

Quinn rolled her eyes and continued, "What I was going to say was don't let him just be nothing to her like Sam is to Jasper. I tried to hand him over to Sam a little bit ago and he looked at me like I was trying to hand him a bag of leprosy. I know you guys aren't into the whole third parent thing and _believe_ me, I understand that, but can you find some way to include him."

"Of course," Brittany said.

"We tried with Sam," Tina said, "We offered to send pictures and updates and things but said he didn't want to get attached to him if he wasn't going to be in his life. He doesn't have a permanent address so we couldn't just send them to him anyway."

"But we'll totally try harder with Mike," Brittany said, "I don't want him to feel like he needs to stay away from Glee Club parties or whatever."

"That's all I ask," Quinn said.

The rest of the reunion passed relatively uneventfully. The Glee Kids got a bit of a scare when Eli Thrace demonstrated exactly how good a hider his when he and Jasper were playing Hide and Seek. Fortunately with a swarm of Glee Kids and Glee Spouses they found him before anyone had a heart attack.

Of course no event where most or all of them were present would be complete without some singing on their part. Mercedes sang a couple of her songs, Sam a couple of his. Rachel sang a song from her show, then dusted off "Get It Right" (which Santana was most certainly _not_ crying at), and closed with something she'd written recently with a mind towards recording an album. Then Beth and Rachel sang some pop song together. Eventually someone started a diva-off which ended in Mercedes singing Whitney and Santana singing Amy Winehouse endlessly.

All in all, it was good reunion.

**X**

Simone Michaela Pierce was born on July 18th, 2022.

Brittany's long awaited third album came out on November 14th, 2022 to little fanfare and middling sales numbers. Her record contract officially over, she declined to renew it. Instead she formed a techno-rock band with a retro bent called Brittany and The Wavelengths who released their music independently through their website and toured locally.

Michael Jackson Cosgrove-Abrams was born January 19th, 2023, the spitting image of his father.

Kirby Adam Pierce was born August 17th, 2023. He'd been birthed by Tina and was the first of their kids to not conform to Brittany's dream since he was a boy and because he didn't have a twin sister. No one particularly cared about any of that though.

Five days later in Austin, Texas, on August 23rd, 2023, Sean Matthew Evans was born to Sam and his fiancée Megan.

On December 15th, 2023, the first day of Hanukah, orphaned brothers, 5 year old Griffin and 3 year old Isaiah came home with Rachel and Santana to live with them.

On January 1st, 2024, President Warren signed into law the Marriage and Family Equality Act, legislation that Santana Lopez and Tina Pierce had been heavily involved in developing and championing. It declared that because there are legal and civil benefits to them, marriage and adoption are therefore civil rights and denying anyone the right to either based on race, gender, gender identification, or sexual orientation stands in violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Gay marriage and second parent adoption were legally recognized on a federal level for the first time, and legal precedent was established to overturn laws restricting such things on the state level.

On January 15th, 2024, Rachel Berry and Santana Lopez were married in a relatively small ceremony (because they didn't want their wedding to turn into what had become of Brittany and Tina's). Six months later they started the process of formally Griffin and Isaiah.

Shortly after the law passed, Kurt surprised everyone by moving back to the US (meaning of course, New York) permanently with a husband Oliver Jordan and two step children, Connor and Cassandra, in tow from Ireland. Oliver was one of Kurt's financial backers for his last run of shows, a bi-sexual widow five years Kurt's senior but by all accounts a great match for him. Connor had taken some time to come to terms with his dad being with another man, but Cassie was a little miniature Kurt and loved him immediately.

Noah Elijah Puckerman Jr. was born May 9th, 2024 to Puck and his recent wife Danielle. They would divorce later that same year but maintain an amicable relationship for their son.

May 21st, 2024 Quinn completed her Master's in English from NYU and announced her engagement to Mike Chang. Three months later she announced that she had sold her first book, what was to be, if successful, the first of a series called Different Directions. It was a somewhat fictionalized account of a high school glee club and the dramatic angst that came along with that.

Alexandra Rose Pierce was born January 11th, 2025. She was the first of their children not named after their donor since they used anonymous donation. There were some complications during her birth. The baby was fine and ultimately so was Brittany but Alex was going to be the last child that she gave birth to.

Robert Arthur Chang was born October 31st, 2025. The day that Quinn got home from the hospital Judy Fabray showed up on her doorstep to tell Quinn that her father had passed away. Quinn invited her in and introduced her to Arthur and Amy Abrams (as well as Mike). She then kindly informed Judy that though the man who threw her out of his home at 16 may be dead, her father was alive and well and currently holding her newborn son sitting next to her mother, the woman who had actually been there for her through the last fifteen years through teenage pregnancy, divorce, and miscarriage.

On November 19th, 2025, after almost two years of looking Rachel and Santana found Griffin and Isaiah's little sister, the now four year old Aisha living in a foster home upstate. They offered her foster parents anything they wanted if they would let them adopt Aisha. Turns out they were fans of Rachel's and asked only for tickets to Rachel's new show and a night on the town in the city which Rachel was all too happy to provide saying that she was going to offer that anyway.

2026 was a big year for them professionally. Santana ran for and eventually won a Senate seat making her the first openly gay US Senator. Brittany and The Wavelengths' second album (simply titled "Two") was nominated for and won a pair of Grammys (making it the first album to win a Grammy that was never released in any physical form, only as a digital download), one for Best Alternative Music Album and the other Best Short Form Music Video for their song "Standing Still", while Rachel's long, long awaited solo album debut picked up Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Pop Solo Performance, and Pop Vocal Album. Quinn's third Different Directions book, titled No Home for You Here depicting the outing of popular football quarterback Daniel Ramirez and its heart wrenching aftermath, hit number one on the New York Times Best Sellers list causing the first two to run up the charts as well. At one point all three were in the Top Twenty. Artie began production on his first big budget film which he made absolutely no apologies for immediately casting his wife in the lead. They would both go on to pick up Golden Globes awards and Oscar nominations (among many others) the subsequent award season. Tina was offered and quickly accepted a seat on the Board of Governors at the HRC Foundation.

By 2027 Tina and Brittany were eager to complete their family, but with Brittany not able to have any more children and Tina gun shy about getting pregnant again after a rough pregnancy with Kirby they opted to take Rachel's advice and look into adopting. They looked around and eventually were put in touch with a 16 year old girl named Marcella Hunter who'd given birth to a baby girl about a month previous. The stress of labor had put too much strain on her heart which had a previously undiagnosed condition and she wasn't getting any better. Brittany and Tina talked with her at great length and showed them pictures of the family that her little girl would potentially be joining. They also talked about their larger family, their Glee family. Marcella really liked that. She'd had a love of music for most of her life. She also liked that her daughter would have a big family to grow up in. Marcella approved their adoption after a week and gave her approval of them naming her Tomina Marcella Pierce in the adoption paperwork.

Brittany, Santana, and Tomina came to see her at the hospital every day occasionally bringing another one of the kids with them. Jasper and Simone both personally promised that they would always look out for Tomina and never let anything bad happen to her. Marcella had been disowned by her parents when she got pregnant, so she'd left what little she had to Brittany and Tina. It mostly just amounted to a bunch of second hand clothes, a few pictures, some papers, and a bank account with $75 in it. They kept the pictures, the papers, and the nicest looking of the clothes putting them in storage in case Tomina ever wanted to know about her birth mother and giving the rest to Goodwill. The $75 went to starting Tomina's college fund.

The night after Marcella's funeral, which sadly the seven members of the Pierce Family were the only mourners in attendance, Brittany and Tina were emotionally drained and really, really running on empty. The huge emotional high of finally completing their family clashed with the severe low of watching a sixteen year old girl die before she really even had a chance to live all through no fault of her own. Neither of them remotely had the energy to try to put four kids to bed (thankfully Tomina was already asleep…for now).

They opted to let the kids stay up and play a little while longer than they normally would have since they seemingly had energy to burn, plus it was a Saturday Night and they had nowhere to be the next day. They were off being rambunctious in one of their bedrooms when Brittany looked to Tina and asked, "Did we like get old or something?"

"We're 34, sweetie," Tina said, "That's not really all that old."

"I know," Brittany sighed, "But it's like 8:30 on a Saturday Night and we're sitting on the couch in our living room doing nothing. We're not even like watching TV or a movie, there's no music on. We're just sitting here. That seems like an old person thing to do. Eighteen year old us didn't do this, hell, twenty-eight year old us didn't do this."

"Eighteen year old us didn't have jobs much less kids, plus we had the energy levels of a couple of teenagers, go figure. Twenty-eight year old us had only had two kids, one of which was in here," Tina poked Brittany's belly, "for most of the year. Now we have five kids all under eight years old so we're allowed to be exhausted… and why don't I hear them making noise?" They both knew that was when they were typically up to no good is when the noise stopped.

Suddenly, as if on cue, all four of them came racing down the hall into the living room. They were up to something but who could guess what. Just as they got to the couch, they paired off, boys together, girls together. The girls flanked Tina, the boys around Brittany. In almost perfect synchronization, the older kids grabbed the bottom hems of their mommies' shirts and pulled them up and all four of them blew raspberries on their mommies' exposed bellies.

Brittany and Tina both howled with laughter as they looked down at four self-satisfied smiling faces. "Mommies no sad," Alex said.

"We are definitely not sad anymore," Tina said through her laughter. Brittany pulled the boys to her and kissed both of their heads. Tina looked over at her wife and said, "Okay, here's what we're going to do. As a special treat for all of you being such good boys and girls at the funeral today, we're going to have two cookies each. Two," she repeated holding up two fingers on each hand, "No begging for any extras. Got it?" Excited smiles and head nods all around, including Brittany. "Then we're all going to go get our jammies on and brush our teeth really well. Then we're all going to go pile in Mommies' bed and watch… Toy Story!" There were huge smiles and big cheers from everyone.

Later Buzz Lightyear was strapped to a rocket that was about to be lit and four Pierce kids were fast asleep laying between their mothers who were smiling at each other and smiling at them and they both knew that the fifth Pierce kid would be waking up soon wanting to be fed so they quickly scooped up a kid each and made two trips to deposit them all in their beds. They had just enough time to get a bottle ready before Tomina began fussing. Brittany picked her up and Tina brought her the bottle in time to stave off any potential screaming that might wake the others. Both of them stood in the hallway between the girls' bedroom and the boys' and looked back and forth at all five of their beautiful children. "Thank you," Brittany said.

"For what?" Tina asked.

"For saying yes," Brittany said.

"To what?"

Brittany shrugged slightly so as not to jostle the baby. "I dunno… everything? Being a vampire, kissing me, dating me, marrying me, making babies with me… loving me."

"You're very welcome, my love," Tina said. She kissed Brittany on the shoulder and then Tomina on the head. Tina watched their youngest go to town on her bottle for a minute before commenting, "We did good, didn't we?"

Brittany smiled. "No one in the history of the world ever did better."


End file.
